28 · Survey Results: Survey Questions And Responses
Any selector can select an e-book, but if the model is inappropriate the purchase will not happen.
Any subject specialist may choose an e-book format for a title.
Bibliographers (who collect in all formats) often agree to jointly purchase or subscribe.
Collections are primarily evaluated by the collection development department, but bibliographers are always
consulted in the process. Individual bibliographers can select individual e-book titles.
Collections Development decided on which e-Book groups to purchase in the first several years individual selectors
order single titles increasingly now.
Collections level: for final decision making, Collections Advisory Committee makes some decisions in some cases.
Consortium level: for ratification/participation, polling.
E-books working group is currently investigating options for individual title purchases
For collections like Ebrary or large archival collections that include “monographs,” decisions to purchase have been
made at the administrative level.
For ten years e-book titles have been selected by individual selectors of our consortia each month. We also subscribe
to packaged collections and let users select. Package-based collections get the lowest usage, patron selected titles
are the most cost-effective.
In some cases, the Head of Collection Development approves a purchase.
Individual selectors (approximately 36 individuals) can select e-books. We primarily purchase them for the reference
collection, so the reference subject librarian selects the most e-books. E-book packages must be approved by
Collections Council, a group of library representatives who approve any ongoing commitments and large purchases
made for the collection.
Many times, selectors will work together in either social sciences, humanities, or social sciences clusters.
On occasion, ad-hoc groups of selectors select e-book collections.
Ontario Council of University Libraries’ Information Resources group is a consortium committee which negotiates
e-book agreements with vendors on behalf of the provincial university libraries.
Requests can come from any selector. Since e-resource vendor ordering interfaces are complicated, only a few staff
do the ordering and they, in practice, do the bulk of the selection as well.
Selection is largely done by subject specialists, but for more expensive collections, e.g., Knovel, the selector will
submit a proposal to a central committee whose main function is to purchase large/expensive e-resource packages/
titles.
The library does not have separate selectors/recommending officers to choose e-books. Many of the selectors/
recommending officers who recommend print material could potentially recommend e-books.
Title-by-title purchases are by subject bibliographers or by patron request. Collection purchases tend to be collective
decisions either within a divisional library or by the university library collections committee.
We get most e-books via consortial collections.
We had a special task force to select e-book collections at one time, but that was very short term. Most of our
selectors select all media.
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