The Purchase On Demand pilot, with $20,000 in funding provided through WNYLRC, is testing the feasibility of the purchase-on-demand model using Amazon.com in a consortial setting. It arose out of a resource sharing initiative but has implications for collection development, delivery and a new way to view patron input and satisfaction.
It is estimated that a minimum of 400 titles (at $50 each) would be purchased in the region and made available for resource sharing. Since we have established the average cost of an Ill transaction is between $18 and $19 to fill, it would take only 2.5 circulations for an item purchased through WNYLRC’s Purchase-on-demand program to pay for itself. Once the $20,00 in funding is depleted, the pilot program ends and the data collected will be analyzed by WNYLRC staff and libraries participating in the pilot. A report will be presented to the Board of Trustees.
The purpose of the Pilot Program is to:
• Test the feasibility of the purchase-on-demand model using Amazon.com in a consortial setting
• Measure the impact on regional resource sharing by gathering statistics on items purchased and their usage history if available
• Determine the scalability of the program to include other funding sources
• Identify its usefulness as a coordinated collection development tool
Proposed outcomes include:
• Puts materials in the hands of the patrons quicker and in some cases cheaper
• Empowers patrons to participate in the development of a library’s collection
• Allows items purchased be lent to the patrons under purchasing library’s policies rather than on a lending library’s policies through ILL
• Allows large and small academic as well as public libraries to participate equally
• Ensures a first copy of a title be purchased and available for lending in the region
• Allows libraries to participate without adhering to stringent bureaucratic layers
• Emphasis on “ownership” of titles, not “rental” of title
• Increased odds that title will be circulated again
Proposed long term benefits:
• broaden the regional collection
• Reduces regional reliance on interlibrary loan and its related costs to meet user information needs
• Allows net-lenders the opportunity to build their collections
• Improves economy of scale regarding shipping costs (one way versus two), and to build a collection on demand using patron requests as the stimulus for building collections.
Once the pilot is terminated, the participating libraries will determine its continued viability. WNYLRC’s funding of the program is for a specified amount of time and may not be used to continue the program beyond the pilot program.
Documents for Purchase on Demand Participants:
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