Tracking 10 Years of On-Demand Services

Abstract

For the past decade or so libraries have been looking for alternative acquisition models, one of which is to move toward on-demand purchasing, which orders resources when prompted by patrons who are faculty, staff, or students. On-demand requires rush processing to speed up acquisition and availability, providing resources in a timely manner. This has resulted in significant changes that affect both patrons and library workers. This presentation is going to provide an examination of making such a change in an academic library's resource acquisition and access model over the past decade. First, the presentation will reflect on changes to workflows. Second, this presentation will discuss the additional support around outreach and collection assessment required for a shift in the model. The presentation will then share analysis on the impact on patron use and attitudes around library collection services before discussing the fiscal impact of the change in model for the library's budget. Attendees will walk away with key insights into the potential impact of making such a shift to an on-demand acquisitions model, including potential challenges they may face. This presentation shows originality in that it provides a programmatic assessment of moving to on-demand acquisitions over a long period of time (10 years). Our library transitioned to on-demand for article acquisitions in 2015, for journals with lower use. Audio Visual efforts began in 2016. We piloted books on demand in Fall 2018 for some subject areas, expanding library-wide in 2019.