Employing Usage Data to Plan for an E-book Collection

Abstract

The authors created a research method to identify local users’ needs and explored how well currently available e-book content might meet those needs. Using circulation records, interlibrary loan (ILL) requests, and in-house use as a gauge of patron demand during a three-year period, the study compared these records to e-book offerings from the major aggregators. The resulting data were analyzed by subject and publication date. The authors found that e-book content that might meet users’ needs was not uniformly distributed across disciplines and that more recent publications were more likely to have e-book equivalents. The highest percentage of e-book equivalents was for titles requested via ILL, suggesting that this might be the best place to begin e-book collecting. The results suggest that e-books may meet only a fraction of the demand for monographic scholarly output and that libraries cannot yet rely on e-book content to entirely supplant print, although e-book coverage is growing dramatically.