Books on Demand: A New(er) Look to Print Monograph Acquisitions

How do you respond to increasing library materials cost? Do you still provide enough, less, or more print books? How do you sustain access to library resources? In the past few years, Zach S. Henderson Library at Georgia Southern University faced these questions and more. As many libraries have done, Henderson Library responded by decreasing monograph acquisitions to allocate additional funds for serial acquisition. However, these challenges provided opportunities for the Library to be creative in purchasing monographs. One of the approaches the Library chose to explore was establishing a print demand-driven acquisition (pDDA) or Books on Demand program with ProQuest. Through this program, the Library has increased its access to print monographs despite experiencing budgetary challenges.

In this session, we will share with you the rationale, the process, the results, and the future of pDDA/ Books on Demand at Georgia Southern University. Presenters will share experiences and lessons learned from this approach, which has been underway for over two years now. Skinner will present the history, challenges and opportunities, and the future of the program. Huwieler will discuss establishing and maintaining the program, including “what’s next” with Books on Demand from the vendor standpoint while Gujilde will share the process and results of the program from the library standpoint.

Attendees will leave with ideas on how to start and what to expect when planning or implementing similar programs in their libraries.