2015 Charleston Library Conference

Perpetual rights or annual subscription? Whole collection or single titles? PDA or EBA?

Librarians are facing changes in the streaming video environment from three directions—along with increased demand and growth in the amount available content, there are more and more acquisition models. How does a library think through all the models and make a decision?

The librarian’s view: There are a number of factors you consider when looking at the choices. What’s your collection development vision? What acquisition model works with your budget? Is perpetual access important to you, or can your environment make an adjustment when rights are inevitably lost so that a film is pulled from a subscription? Are your academic programs stable, or do your needs change often? The various acquisition models address these and other criteria differently, and no one model serves all needs.

The vendor’s view: What the vendor offers will reflect the outcome of complex negotiations with the rights holder, or information provider (IP). For example, one IP might agree to include its content in collections but not in PDA. Another might agree to subscriptions but not to perpetual acquisitions.

Please join us to hear academic librarians from Cornell, University of Central Florida, and Arizona State University explain how they’re sorting through the choices, experimenting, evaluating results, and making decisions—following a short introduction by Alexander Street. Our aim is for you to leave with a clear roadmap, so that you can tailor a fit that’s just right for your library.