PDA in the Public Library

While most of the use, development, research and literature about patron-driven acquisitions focus on academic libraries as the setting, public libraries too are changing both the way they think about acquisitions and the process they use for collection development.  This, of course, looks different than the goals and process that academic libraries have.  Many academic libraries have systems set up for direct buying of e-books by patrons with a librarian approving or reviewing a particular purchase.  Public libraries, however, have been slower to embrace this system.  Academic libraries exist to server a very small community with a very particular purpose compared to a public library who has a mission to inform and entertain a great diversity of people.  Public libraries often have much smaller budgets as well and less of their patrons may be able to fully utilize e-books.

However, libraries are being influenced by the philosophy of a collection being built by patron’s specific requests, rather than by an expert librarian making informed guesses about what users may want.  Many public libraries recognize that fact that their patrons are expecting information at a quicker speed and if they cannot get it at the library they may very well go elsewhere (Mejdrich 2011).  Also, if new purchases are based on past circulation, the library only buys books for its current users. 

To meet this new situation, some public libraries have set up systems to purchase patron requested books in a timely manner, often connecting their PDA system with Inter-Library Loan.  Others are doing similar e-book purchasing to academic libraries.  One example of a PDA/ILL system is Hillsboro Public Library in Oregon (Mejdrich 2011).  There they first set up a system where an ILL request would create an automatic purchase request.  An acquisitions librarian would review the request and if she/he approved the book would be bought rather than borrowed for another institution.  However, because new book orders were made only once a month and there were several back and forth steps in the process, the average wait for the book was fifty-six days (Majdrich 2011).  The library decided to strive for a quicker turnaround time by creating a “Request to Buy” program.  The ILL staff was empowered to make purchases if the requested materials met several broad guidelines, cutting out several steps in the process.  Also, new purchase orders went out once a week rather than once a month.  This new system resulted in only a twelve day wait for newly purchased material, comparable to the average ILL wait (Majdrich 2011).

PDA of e-books can also interact with ILL systems.  The patron would have the option to either request the hardcopy of the book from another library in the system, or could download the e-book version and thereby purchasing the electronic copy for the library.  Esposito (2012) argues that this is a much more cost effective way to use ILL and to purchase new e-books.  ILL dollars are not spent on books that could be instantaneously accessed by the patron online and at the end of the day the library gets a new book for its expenditure (Esposito 2012).

Systems like the one Esposito argues for or that are in place at Hillsboro Public Library often make public librarians nervous.  It takes some of the control of collection development out of their hands and it sometimes seems uncertain if the general public can handle the responsibility of choosing what books the library purchases.  No library wants to end up with one hundred copies of the new bestselling thriller due to patrons’ over-enthusiasm.  However, PDA can be very helpful for public libraries as they try to meet specific community needs, particularly for “specific ethnic, national, or language communities whose reading interests might be otherwise underrepresented in library acquisitions” (Brantley 2012).  Librarians hopefully know what these members of their community want, but language and cultural barriers may prevent them from knowing as well as they should.  An acquisitions set up that is more patron-driven can help institutions over those barriers.

Questions to consider:

-What else could PDA do for public libraries?  How else could it be integrated?
-Do you think this is a helpful way to go about building a public library collection?  Why or why not?

References

Brantley, P. (2012). The Ultimate Discovery Engine.  Publishers Weekly. Retrieved from http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/PWxyz/2012/01/09/ultimate-discovery-engine/

Esposito, J. (2012). PDA and Inter-Library Loan. The Scholarly Kitchen. Retrieved from http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/03/13/pda-and-inter-library-loan/

Mejdrich, K. (2011). The Library Collection as Service. OLA Quarterly,17(3), 7-8.  Retrieved from http://data.memberclicks.com/site/ola/olaq_17no3.pdf