2015 Charleston Library Conference

As is common with other academic libraries, Case Western Reserve University spends approximately 20% of its annual materials budget on monographs and 80% on serial purchases. However, with a mostly flat budget and serial inflation, selecting librarians must be hyper-aware of monographic purchasing decisions and their justification. In 2012, the Kelvin Smith Library conducted a Demand-Driven Acquisitions pilot for both physical and electronic books in an effort to offer a breadth of scholarly material to faculty and students in a cost-effective way. This poster presentation will cover assessment of the DDA pilot as it compares to firm order titles purchased within the two year time period in which the DDA pilot ran. Considerations will include user format preference, circulation and usage statistics, cost-per-use, peer comparisons, user behavior, and strategic decisions.