This is a companion to a Poster Session presented by Robin Hartman at the American Theological Library Association annual conference in Long Beach, California in June 2016.
We have bought several collections of academic eBooks over the years, the first in 2002. While the acquisition of eBooks has become commonplace since then, we continue to have questions about how to value and account for them as institutional assets.
Suddenly these questions became urgent last year when we lost access to an entire collection of 2,297 eBooks. They were transferred to a new vendor who could not find record of our ownership. Our campus wide accounting system had also changed so we did not have adequate proof of purchase.
How was I going to explain this to our business office? How was it going to be recorded on the books? What was the estimated market value of these 12-year-old eBooks?
Thankfully, after some deep excavating, we discovered a paper-based file with more than enough evidence to prove that we had purchased the lost collection. Suddenly, as fast as they were gone, the eBooks were back.
After reviewing the titles, we realized that if they were print books some of them would have been removed by now anyway – particularly those on topics such as ten-year-old strategies for e-commerce. But weeding eBooks had not entered my mind. It is not covered in our Collection Development Policy and in my brief scan of library literature I discovered very little has been written on the topic. It was then that I decided to submit this presentation proposal.
See more of the story...
Hartman, Robin. eBook Economics: Accounting for Loss Hugh and Hazel Darling News & Events Blog (June 27, 2015)
An informal survey of ATLA and CCCU Library Directors regarding their practices and thoughts about weeding eBooks was sent using the email lists for each respective group. See Survey Summary tab in this LibGuide for the text and summary of the results.
Culley, Jennifer (2015) "I Feel the Need to Weed!: Maintaining an E-book Collection," The Southeastern Librarian: Vol. 63: Iss. 1, Article 2. Available at: http://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/seln/vol63/iss1/2
Miller, Robin. (2015) "Academic Libraries Should Consider Deselection of Some Electronic Books" Evidence Based Library and Information Practice [Online], Volume 10 Number 3. Available at: https://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/24713
Moroni, A. E. (2012). Weeding in a digital age. Library Journal, 137(15), 26-n/a.