1 Comment on Case Study: Implementing the R2 Digital Library’s Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA) Tool to Inform Collection Development 309
Project Lead: Megan Inman, Collection Development Librarian
Institution: East Carolina University Laupus Health Sciences Library
Timeframe of the launch and timeframe of the marketing campaign
We started the conversation about the R2 Digital Library and the PDA tool in September 2016. By February 2017, we had made the initial PDA collection selections and it went live and was available to our users. We took the time to curate the initial PDA list and wanted to ensure that the collection we were extending to the users was something new to them — not duplicating existing resources in the current catalogue at that time.
The goals for the marketing campaign
Since PDA was new for our health sciences campus, the ultimate goals for this project were title discoverability, ease of use, and informing collection management.
Measuring the success of the campaign
Success was measured by a combination of discoverability, ease of adding titles that users “triggered” into the collection and using the backend statistics to analyze the use of each title.
It’s nice to have a resource that we didn’t have to promote heavily. We have an existing discovery tool, and adding R2 Digital Library PDA eBooks into the mix of our discovery tool was an easy, seamless process. Along with our liaison librarians working closely with their departments, marketing the R2 collection didn’t take a lot of effort!
Being notified that a PDA title had triggered and then finding them in the cart was great for its time-saving efficiency! It was easy to assess and determine if we wanted to add a triggered title to the collection. Users were really grateful that PDA triggered titles could be accessed immediately after we made the purchase.
We do not get any questions about the format of the eBooks in the R2 Digital Library, which proves how intuitive the discoverability of information is in the database.
We had a preset budget when we started our initial PDA collection, and it has grown since the launch. It’s heartening to know we’re buying something that is being used!
Lessons learned and applied to helping other libraries market PDA
Curate a PDA list that makes sense for your users and your library’s needs. There is a broad scope of content available on R2, which helped make our first PDA experience a success.
Educate. R2 has the materials available to help educate your staff and end users. Using those at the beginning of the PDA collection launch helped support our liaison librarians when working with their individual departments.
Make it discoverable. R2 seamlessly integrated into our existing discovery system, which meant minimal marketing efforts were needed.
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[…] Collection Development Monthly recently published a case study on the R2 Digital Library’s PDA tool. The subject of the case study was the implementation and […]