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Discovery, Collections & Systems

Notes and procedures

Demand Driven Acquisitions

As part of Memorial Library's acquisitions plan, we receive e-books through a Demand Driven Acquisitions (DDA) plan. The subject librarians work with our vendor to set up subject areas, publishers, and research levels of books which match Memorial Library's collection scope. As books that match those areas become available in e-book form via the Demand Driven program on the ProQuest EBook Central Platform, records are added to our catalog.

When students or faculty members find these books in the catalog, they click on the link and in most cases, are taken seamlessly to the e-book. In some cases, where the cost is higher, (generally over $150/book) there may be a slight delay as the request is forwarded to a library staff member for confirmation and approval.

The key benefit of this program is that Memorial Library is not charged for books until they are used, thus enabling us to make more books available than if we had to purchase them all up front whether or not they are used.

Print vs. Electronic

Collection Development Minutes, September 27, 2011

Acquisition and the preference of print vs. electronic:

  • Revise the online form to ask requestors to specify print/electronic/no preference
  • Liaisons who forward Choice cards should ask faculty to note format preference
  • Understanding that this decision may result in some duplication of the same title, we collect in multiple formats because we have users who need multiple formats
  • When no requestor preference is given, our preference will remain the most economic choice, which currently will usually be print