The academic e-book market has undergone significant change in the last five years. E-book availability has greatly increased as library demand has grown, with an increasing percentage of library acquisitions preferring electronic rather than print format. E-book acquisition models like patron-driven acquisition and short-term loan have now become commonplace and available from a multitude of consortia, publishers and aggregators. With the wide availability of these models, is there still value in buying e-books through package deals?
To help answer this question, we will present the results of a usage-based analysis of Wiley e-books. Since 2012, Miami University Libraries have purchased Wiley e-book collections through a consortial OhioLINK contract. Previously purchased OhioLINK e-book collections have been accessible to patrons through both OhioLINK's Electronic Book Center platform and the publisher platform. The Wiley e-book purchase deviates from previous practice by being available to patrons only on the publisher platform and our analysis is therefore focused on COUNTER e-book usage reports from the Wiley platform. We also augment the usage data with title-level information, such as subject and book type. This preliminary study focuses on the 2012 Wiley collection and its use over a three-year period (2012-2014) and will include data-driven findings presented in visually useful ways. Some of the questions we will explore include:
- Are Wiley e-books being used and how?
- How does Wiley e-book usage compare to previous e-book usage analysis for other consortially purchased e-book packages? (e.g., Springer or Oxford)
- Is there still value in buying at the collection level as opposed to a title-by-title or patron-driven basis?
- Does the number of unused titles diminish each year?
- What titles/subjects attract significant usage?
There will also be a brief discussion about how our findings relate to other usage-based studies.
