Marketing to Libraries

Marketing to Libraries 2008 Survey of Academic Librarians A project of the 2007-08 AAUP Marketing Committee: Mahinder S. Kingra, Cornell University Press, chair Colleen Lanick, MIT Press James McCoy, University of Iowa Press Jessica Pellien, Princeton University Press Amanda Sutton, University of New Mexico Press Erich van Rijn, University of California Press Alison Vandenberg, Minnesota Historical Society Press The Association of American University Presses rd 71 West 23 Street • Suite 901 • New York • NY • 10010 • www.aaupnet.org Background In late September 2007, Nancy Bryan, the Assistant Marketing Manager at the University of Texas Press, did an informal survey of several academic librarians in the University of Texas system that revealed that they did not rely all that heavily on mailings of seasonal catalogs from book publishers as an acquisitions tool. Her survey sample was very small, and her results were largely anecdotal, but it became clear to the membership that many of us had very little hard data on what kind of sales promotion works for academic libraries. Thus, the AAUP Board of Directors and Central Office decided to fund a survey of academic librarians that would seek to collect more formal responses to the question of printed catalogs and other issues surrounding book acquisition in academic libraries. About the Survey The AAUP conducted its survey of academic librarians in late January of 2008. The survey was conducted using a spam-free e-mail list, which was rented from Market Data Retrieval. The survey was designed by the marketing committee using a tool called SurveyMonkey. The list contained the e-mail addresses of 3996 librarians across the country. We solicited responses from librarians with the following job titles: • Library Director • Assistant Library Director • Acquisitions Librarian • Collection Development Director • Collection Development Specialist • Subject Area Specialist An announcement containing a link to the survey was also posted on the American College and Research Librarians forum listserv. We received 435 completed responses to the survey, which is a response rate of nearly 13%. Roughly 29% of those who received the link to the survey via e-mail actually opened the e-mail, and 13.2% of all recipients clicked through to the survey link.1 About 45% of respondents who opened the e-mail actually clicked-through, and about 41% completed the survey. Structure of the Survey The survey was split up into four parts: 1. Institution Description–Demographic information about the respondents and their institutions to help us filter responses. This included information about Carnegie classification, enrollment, and budget. 1 We couldn’t factor responses from librarians on the ACRL e-mail list into the statistics because we don’t know how many actually got the e-mail and opened it. Any who responded from this posting inflated our response rate since it was measured against the number of names we rented from MDR. 2 2. Publisher Information–This section included questions about the efficacy of publisher outreach to academic librarians and what publisher outreach and other factors actually influence book acquisition. 3. Library Distributor Information–Since a library distributor most often intermediates a book purchase transaction between library and publisher, this section asked about which distributors libraries order from and what communications they receive from these companies. 4. The Future of Book Acquisition–This section focused on future trends in book acquisition and areas where electronic products are making a significant impact on book acquisition. General Comments on Responses This was not a scientific survey, and the marketing committee did not control for any specific variables in people’s responses. Moreover, as with any e-mail survey that asks specific questions about where the respondents see the place of technology in their own lives, one can assume that, as a group, the people who actually take the time to respond to an e-mailed, web-based survey are likely to skew towards being generally happier with technology. We didn’t limit the survey to a set number of respondents per institution. Therefore, the survey could contain answers from several employees at one institution. Also, the committee decided to ask the same questions of employees at all levels in the academic library hierarchy–from library directors to acquisitions librarians–and we assumed that most employees in all of the job types had enough information to answer these questions. Clearly, though, questions about budget and strategy are probably more usefully answered by people who engage with those issues daily at a higher level. We have attempted to interleave illustrative charts where they seemed appropriate. All of the respondents were very candid in response to open-ended questions, and we will try to distill their comments where appropriate in this summary. Section I: Institution Description This section focused primarily on obtaining information about the respondents’ demographic profile, which could be used to filter responses. Of the respondents roughly 44% were either directors, assistant directors, or collection development directors. The remainder were acquisitions librarians or subject area specialists. 3 The respondents from high-level occupations (director, assistant director, collection development director) came from a cross-section of universities. The largest percentages of those in the higher-level occupations were employed at institutions that offered no higher than a Master’s degree (68%). The balance were at Ph.D. granting institutions. The largest single percentage taught at institutions fewer than 5,000 students (59%) and acquisitions budgets for books, journals, and e-resources of less than $1 million (59%). The respondents from the lower-level occupations (collection development specialist, subject specialist, acquisitions librarian) came from a similarly broad cross-section of institutions, but the numbers who worked at Ph.D. granting institutions with larger library budgets were much higher. Among this group, 54% 4 worked at Ph.D. granting institutions, 71% worked at institutions with greater than 5,000 students, and 55% worked at institutions with budgets larger than $1 million. Among this group, however, over 20% in each category answered that they “didn’t know” the answers to questions about budgetary appropriations for books, journals, and e-resources. Of all the respondents, a whopping 43% responded that electronic resources account from 35% or more of their annual budgetary expenditures. 44% of the respondents worked at institutions where ongoing expenditures for journals (both print & electronic) consumed greater than 40% of their budgets (18.3% worked at institutions where the number was greater than 60%.) At libraries with budgets of greater than $1 million, the number responding that journals consumed greater than 40% or more of their budgets was 20 points higher–63%. 57% of all respondents worked at institutions where print book acquisitions accounted for less than 30% of their institution’s budgetary appropriations. At libraries with total budgets of greater than $1 million, this percentage was actually higher–64%. The bigger the library’s budget, the less there is to spend on books. This can be at least partially attributed to the fact that at large research universities, it is incumbent upon collection development staff to house the most current research, and this means costly journal and electronic resource subscriptions. 5 Section II: Publisher Information This section was devoted to gathering intelligence about how publisher’s sales and promotion strategies influence decision-making in the book acquisition process. This was perhaps the most profitable area of questioning for the AAUP membership. The common thread is that academic libraries are complex places, and decisions are made differently at different institutions. One of the higher-level librarians had this to say about publisher marketing efforts to academic librarians, “I personally very much appreciate a good website, especially one that can tell me what is new in a new edition of a work. But like most librarians, I will buy based on subject and publisher, and I will use my vendor for notification. You never know when an ad or "marketing effort" might pay off in this environment. Not often.” Judging from the comments that were solicited to the questions about publisher marketing, the impression on the part of most librarians is that they receive far too much useless marketing, particularly print marketing. Although over 95% of respondents claimed to receive print catalogs from publishers, an overwhelming majority feel that these are a waste of paper. In response to the question asking respondents to rate the impact of publisher marketing materials, 82.2% stated that general catalogs from book publishers are at best “somewhat useful.” By contrast, 46% stated that information from a publisher’s website was either very useful or critical. Respondents commented that websites are important because often data on university press books in the databases of their approval vendors is not current. Better cooperation by university presses and library distributors, in facilitating bibliographic updates and enhancements via the ONIX standard could alleviate this problem, but clearly librarians go straight to the source. Print catalogs that are specific to a subject or discipline were gauged to be more useful by librarians. Less than 10% claimed that such materials were “not at all useful” to them. Advertising received the lowest marks as a promotional tool, however, with over 90% claiming that advertising does not impact their decision-making significantly. In fact, in question #6 in this section, 66% percent claimed that advertising plays no significant role in their decision-making at all. 6 Question #4 was meant to rank various factors in their decision-making. This question was somewhat poorly worded, but the goal was to figure out what relative weight the various factors had. Most respondents construed this, others didn’t. Clearly, from those who answered the question, however, faculty recommendations are the single most important decision-making factor when it comes to discretionary purchases at academic libraries and 64% marked faculty recommendations as critical. Reviews in trade journals (e.g. Library Journal and Choice) and reviews in scholarly journals were next in importance, and were rated as “very important by 43% and 44% of respondents, respectively. Most of the comments on the efficacy of publisher marketing were somewhat reminiscent of the following from one librarian: Much of my print book acquisitions takes place through an approval plan and this covers books in the humanities and social sciences from university presses as well as core academic commercial presses. I rarely use any print catalogs these days. They go right in the recycle box. If I receive an approval slips (sic) about a title I am not sure about (in terms of fit to my collection) I check the web sites. Email notices are also become (sic) too prevalent and too frequent to pay any attention to unless the publication being touted is truly unique, or a multi volume set. I do appreciate being able to get an RSS feed from publishers I am interested in. In addition, over 80% of all respondents generally feel that university presses do an adequate job of alerting them to new publications in their area. Of those who responded that we don’t, responses were sort of a mixed bag. One interesting response to this question was: “All university presses should combine their resources and advertise in one place in one catalog.” Since the AAUP has been looking for collective marketing opportunities this might be one idea to explore in the future. In addition, the AAUP may want consider an e-mail notification service or RSS feed for academic librarians where AAUP members could advertise their new 7 titles. Indeed, a common thread in the survey results is that librarians like the onestop-shop approach that they get through the library distributors and prefer to work as few publishers directly as possible. Thus, the take away from this section is that publisher marketing to librarians can help somewhat if the marketing is targeted and focused on specific books. Librarians, however, do not have the time to sort through reams of promotional material and in most cases are bound by approval programs from vendors such as Blackwell and Yankee Book Peddler that make most of their purchasing decisions for them. Collection development librarians usually take pride in making sure that their library is stocked with the best materials available, so if they can afford it, they will buy it. A better strategy for most products for which an institutional market is critical is to market strongly to faculty so that they might make recommendations to library collection staff and for sales managers to maintain strong relationships with buyers and profilers at academic library wholesalers. Nearly 70% of respondents responded that faculty input “very important” in their acquisitions decision-making. Additionally, it’s clear that data flow to these outlets is crucial to a title being profiled and represented correctly by the distributors, and publishers not currently utilizing the ONIX standard should consider migrating to it. Section III: Library Distributor Information This section sought to gather some intelligence about how publisher’s relationships with academic library wholesalers affect sell-in to academic libraries. There were some surprises here. As Jim McCoy, of the University of Iowa Press pointed out, “I’m shocked by how many libraries are sourcing books through Amazon.com!” Indeed, as evidenced by people’s comments in response to question #2, which asked from which library distributor the respondent’s library primarily ordered, 18 of the 57 respondents who chose to supply an alternate vendor cited Amazon by name, although it was not offered as a choice. One respondent actually mentioned in free form comments that many universities are formalizing book distribution arrangements with Amazon: University purchasing bureaucracy impacts relationships. Right now this library is hurting because the University lawyers cannot reach an agreeable contract with Amazon.com. The whole invoicing process as prescribed by the State affects whether or not we can work with certain vendors. Thus, Amazon’s discounting policies seem to be directly influencing purchasing at libraries with budgets large and small. In fact, we thought it might be an anomaly that so many people responded in their comments that they primarily sourced books through Amazon.com rather than through Baker and Taylor or Blackwell. (Although Yankee Book Peddler is owned by Baker & Taylor, we asked about them separately, because they are somewhat separately branded for their customers.) But, then we filtered for those with budgets of less than $1 million, and it turned out that these are not the librarians from whom the lion’s share of these comments came. Indeed, it might be an area for further study since so many university presses tend to evaluate 8 library buying based on sales to wholesalers. This makes sales to libraries through Amazon.com go unreported. Since library wholesalers promote books to librarians (and offer paid placement in these promotions to publishers), the committee thought it would be profitable to ask some questions about how these are received. About 2/3 of our respondents said that they received book promotions from library wholesalers, and about 40% were signed up to receive e-mail newsletters from these wholesalers.2 Since these respondents also responded to an e-mail survey from an organization to whom they were not directly affiliated, it may be safe to assume that this subscription rate is somewhat higher than in the academic librarian community generally, but since we did not control for this variable, it is impossible to know exactly how much higher. In general, though, it can be said that none of the promotions offered by library distributors were found to be very useful or critical, so since marketing dollars at university presses are scarce, it seems reasonable to extrapolate that spending large sums on cooperative advertising, which 60% of respondents found “Not very useful” is not an effective expenditure of resources. Prepublication promotions, which are a sales tool for expensive items, such as reference publications, and printed brochures were found very useful by over 20% of respondents, but on the whole almost no one found anything promotions from distributors to be critical in their decision-making. The approval plans are the key to the whole system (no surprise here). But, many marketing efforts that are channeled through library 2 Some respondents associated getting e-mail approval slips with receiving promotional newsletters. While it was not the intention of the survey to associate the two, it points to the importance of e-mailed approval slips from library distributors. 9 wholesalers that go beyond making sure our titles are profiled correctly are not very effective. One respondent summed up the relationship between libraries and distributors thusly: Library distributors continue to play a vital role in helping libraries consolidate orders/invoices/customer service. It's maddening to have to deal with each individual publisher for e-resources. I'm hopeful that one day libraries will be able to consolidate e-resource business transactions as we've been doing with books and print journals for years. Section IV: The Future of Book Acquisition The point in the previous section about e-resources is an interesting one and provides an excellent transition to the section on the future of book acquisition at academic libraries since this section is fairly heavily focused on e-resources. At both doctorate-granting institutions and institutions with lower Carnegie classifications about the same number of respondents said that their library subscribed to some sort of ebook program–a little over 80%. Not surprisingly, academic libraries at the Ph.D. granting institutions subscribed to more than one ebook program. Of the available ebook programs, about 80% at both Ph.D. and non-Ph.D.–granting institutions subscribed to NetLibrary.3 Ebrary had the second largest market share with about 30% of respondents saying that their institution subscribed. 8 of 79 respondents who mentioned other programs cited the Oxford Scholarship Online subscription databases, while numerous others mentioned other publisher’s subscription monograph series such as Springer’s SpringerDirect. 3 Anecdotally, it has been communicated through various channels that the reason for the high adoption rate of NetLibrary’s service is that NetLibrary editions can be ordered directly by library acquisitions staff through Baker & Taylor/Yankee Book Peddler’s GOBI ordering and approval interface. 10 This survey couldn’t get too deep into the nuances of library ebook programs and how librarians feel about having to license e-resources from publishers rather than aggregators, but this would clearly be fertile ground for further study by the AAUP or another industry organization. Digital distribution of monographs clearly continues to be a turbulent area for academic libraries, and while publishers (particularly those with large title outputs and deep backlists) wish to go directly to libraries with electronic hosting platforms for librarians, clearly this is frustrating for academic librarians who are used to having print monographs fed to them from distributors via established bibliographic profiling and approval programs as the commenter in the section above noted. 33% of all respondents claim that print book budgets at their institutions have decreased over the last five years. Additionally, 43% said that their book acquisition budgets have stayed about the same. The bad news for publishers of academic monographs is that nearly 70% of respondents said that an increase in expenditures for electronic resources has caused them to decrease expenditures for print books. This answer should serve as a bit of a bellwether for university presses who wish to continue to serve academic libraries with their offerings. High-level librarians at doctoral institutions also provided some interesting responses. While some modest percentage of these folks claimed that their budgets for books in the humanities and social sciences had increased over the last five years, about 38% claimed that their budgets for acquisitions in the natural sciences had increased. This is likely in response to price pressures from STM publishers but also in response to a perception that the most current research literature is needed in these disciplines. 11 Interestingly, among this group, about 53% answered that when publishers simultaneously publish cloth and paperback books, they always order the paperback on their approval programs. Only about 10% of respondents in this category always order the cloth edition. However, in most cases, a book’s price has nothing to do with whether a cloth or paperback book is ordered–this generally seems to be defined by a library’s approval program with its vendor. All groups of respondents felt that print reference and print journals are becoming a thing of the past. About 60-65%, depending upon the response group, answered that print reference was being replaced rather than augmented by e-resources, and 85%-90% answered that this was true of journals. Interestingly, only between 5%10% answered that this was true of monographs, depending upon their job category or institution type. This, again, might be a fertile area for further study by the AAUP. Several high-profile discussions of the transformation of scholarly discourse in the past year have taken place, such as the Ithaka report, “University Publishing in a Digital Age,” but clearly, librarians don’t feel that any content hosting platform for monographic literature is yet capable of acting as a replacement for their print books 12 and approval programs.4 They buy ebooks, but they’re not yet seen as an adequate replacement for print. The free-form comments that the committee received about ebooks in the academy were interesting, and rather than trying to extrapolate, it seems better to let some of them speak to the chaotic world of ebooks themselves. They range from practical business problems with ebooks to philosophical responses about the future of the ebook in the academy: “Ebook collections are still irritatingly volatile. Some publishers include their collections, only to later withdraw them and offer them independently. This makes cataloging and maintaining links a living hell.” “Our students have no interest in them. They curse when a NetLibrary title comes up in a search (provided by our regional consortium - we don't buy them because they are so unpopular). They're extremely frustrated by DRM limitations and want print. I think the panic over plagiarism has compelled them to want to have a document in their hands for their own defense. They also prefer writing from sources that are in print - even if that means they have to print it out. It's easier to work with the sources by physically spreading them out to organize them. I think open access to book content can spur discovery and sales of the print. Our students are simply not interested in reading long texts online. Until something ubiquitous like the next iPhone or a next-gen PDA allows really convenient reading online, print will be their preference. (They would never buy a Kindle, by the way. Too expensive, too dorky, and you can't share files.)” “Our administration thinks that the library could be primarily electronic ebook based, but faculty and students who actually USE the resources still want print books and paper journals available. I believe that accreditation teams for various professions also need to change their expectations if ebooks and ejournals are to replace print.” “We belong to a consortium that allows direct borrowing of books from member libraries. e-books can't be "loaned" so I order monographs in print rather than ebooks.” “We select electronic reference material whenever possible, but publisher pricing is sometimes prohibitive; plus signing a license agreement is a roadblock. We are just beginning to select non-reference ebooks, and will be choosing between myilibrary and ebrary shortly. We do not like the Netlibrary model. So far our ebook selections are limited to Greenwood, and use has been fairly low.” 4 For the complete text of the report, visit: http://www.ithaka.org/strategicservices/university-publishing 13 “At this point our staff sees more usefullness (sic) in electronic journals and reference titles, rather than in monographs, but we think that it will be only a matter of time before the latter becomes more widely accepted and used.” Thus, marketing of book-length electronic content to academic libraries does not seem to be in anybody’s interest right now, but preparing our book collections for the time when the kinks in the business and delivery models are worked out and they need to marketed to libraries this way should at least be on publisher’s radar screens as a major business consideration for the future. Conclusions We’ve attempted herein to extrapolate what the major trends in book acquisition at academic libraries are and also how publishers ought to respond to these trends. Clearly, what the survey results reveal is that academic librarians are as a group not easily swayed by publisher marketing. This is built into their approval system of book acquisition, which relies on profiling by third-party distributors to help them wade through the 170,000+ titles that are published by the book industry every year. Clearly, though, there are areas of book acquisition that publishers can affect, and if publishers are concerned about how well their books are selling in the academic library market, they should examine the following: • Bibliographic data quality–Library wholesalers have elaborate methods in place for profiling titles for academic librarians. However, this does not make them infallible. Moreover, bibliographic data originates with the publisher. Distributors pick up data from the Library of Congress as well, but much comes directly from publishers. Our data is our responsibility. • Profiling for approval programs–Figure out what approval programs your titles are a part of, and if they’re not being represented appropriately by the distributors, work with them to fix the problem. • Faculty outreach–What came through loud and clear is that print marketing materials for monographic literature directed at librarians is not very useful unless it’s targeted. Promoting books to faculty is a strategy that is likely to produce better results, particularly at institutions with larger budgets and excellent communications between academic departments and collection development staff. This may be particularly true for smaller presses who aren’t included in some major approval programs. • The right audience–If you do direct outreach to librarians, make sure it hits a selector in the correct discipline. Since printed catalogs represent a significant marketing expenditure for university presses, it may be wise to reconsider how broadly you mail at least your general, seasonal catalog to academic librarians. Another somewhat unsettling trend revealed by this survey involves the trend away from purchasing books through academic library distributors. It’s no secret that students are buying textbooks at Amazon.com, but apparently so are the libraries. 14 Having so much of the academic market tied up with one retail outlet may pose strategic challenges for publishers large and small down the road, and each publisher will have to address this challenge in its own way. Finally, one of the things that this survey made apparent is how complex academic libraries really are and how little most university presses really understand them, despite the fact that many of us have offices on the same campus as our libraries. For many of us, this disengagement from the world of library book acquisition has been a matter of necessity–sales and marketing efforts have to be channeled to the outlets that actually generate revenue, and academic libraries no longer generate much revenue for university presses. As a matter of fact, sales by university presses to libraries counted by the Book Industry Study Group’s Book Industry Trends 2007 report accounted for only 8% of all book sales to academic libraries– approximately $21 million.5 The six largest university press publishers each have net sales revenue of more than $21 million. We sell our books to a lot of different customers, but college and university libraries are by far and away not the biggest market for our books. But we all feel that somehow they ought to be a large market for our books because we’re all part of the academy. The disconnect is that while the AAUP membership is heavily weighted towards book publishers, the reality is that the majority of scholarly communication as evidenced by library expenditures is focused on journals and reference. Journals publishers and reference publishers are better connected to academic libraries because they have to be, whereas university press book publishers have needed to forge connections with other book industry partners in order to sustain themselves and generate the revenue necessary to survive. The hope is that this survey and accompanying report will open up a new dialogue about the relationship of university press book publishing programs to institutional libraries and further an understanding of the complex nature of this relationship. 5 Book Industry Study Group, Book Industry Trends 2007. New York, NY. 2007 15 Appendix A: AAUP Academic Library Survey Q1. Please pick the category that best describes your current position. Answer Options Library Director Assistant Library Director Collection Development Director Collection Development Specialist Subject Area Specialist Acquisitions Librarian answered question skipped question Response Percent 18.6% 9.0% 17.6% 7.1% 30.1% 17.6% Response Count 89 43 84 34 144 84 478 2 Q2. What is the highest degree offered by your institution? Answer Options Associate's Bachelor's Master's Ph.D. answered question skipped question Response Percent 11.5% 8.4% 35.6% 44.4% Response Count 55 40 170 212 477 3 Q3. What is the approximate total enrollment at your college or university? Answer Options less than 1000 1,000-5,000 5,000-10,000 10,000-15,000 15000+ answered question skipped question Response Percent 8.2% 34.2% 16.8% 15.1% 25.8% Response Count 39 163 80 72 123 477 3 16 Q4. What is the size of your library's overall budgetary appropriation for books, journals, and electronic resources (both one-time and continuing commitments)? Answer Options less than $500,000 $500,0000-$1 million" $1 million-$5 million $5 million+ answered question skipped question Response Percent 36.1% 18.7% 27.3% 18.0% Response Count 168 87 127 84 466 14 Q5. Roughly what percentage of your appropriations are devoted to electronic resources? Answer Options <10% 10%-25% 25%-35% 35%-45% 45%+ Don't Know answered question skipped question Response Percent 4.7% 18.0% 18.9% 18.5% 24.2% 15.7% Response Count 22 84 88 86 113 73 466 14 Q6. Roughly what percentage of your budget is spent on new print book acquisitions? Answer Options 10%-20% 20%-30% 30%-40% 40%-50% 50%+ Don't Know answered question skipped question Response Percent 24.6% 32.3% 18.6% 5.8% 5.1% 13.7% Response Count 115 151 87 27 24 64 468 12 17 Q7. What percentage of your budget is allocated to subscriptions to print journals and electronic access to journals? Answer Options 0-10% 10%-20% 20%-30% 30%-40% 40%-50% 50%-60% 60%+ Don't Know answered question skipped question Response Percent 2.4% 5.6% 14.3% 19.9% 14.1% 11.6% 18.4% 13.7% Response Count 11 26 67 93 66 54 86 64 467 13 Q8. Do you receive print catalogs from publishers? Answer Options Yes No answered question skipped question Response Percent 99.3% 0.7% Response Count 435 3 438 42 Q9. Please rate the impact of publisher's marketing materials on your new book acquisitions process. Not at all useful 169 Subject/Discipline Catalogs 44 Advertising 203 Specialized Brochures 86 E-mail Newsletters 147 RSS Feeds 289 Trade Show Displays 178 Publisher's Website 50 answered question skipped question Answer Options General Catalogs Somewhat useful 199 194 214 254 221 113 191 188 Very useful 68 169 22 98 70 20 60 150 Critical 11 40 1 6 5 5 8 58 Response Count 447 447 440 444 443 427 437 446 451 29 18 Q10. If you have any general comments about, publisher marketing and promotion efforts, please make them here: Answer Options answered question skipped question Response Count 174 306 Q11. Please rate the impact of the various factors listed below on your acquisitions decision-making. Not at all Answer Options important Library Journal/ Choice/ Booklist Review 16 Reviews in Scholarly Journals 7 Reviews in the General Media (e.g. NY Times) 71 Faculty Recommendations 0 Advertising from Library Distributors (e.g. Baker & Taylor) 206 Somewhat important Very important Critical Response Count 62 94 128 19 103 100 93 53 124 32 56 17 3 254 9 234 211 255 397 350 447 33 answered question skipped question Q12. To which library trade journals do you subscribe? (You may provide more than one answer). Answer Options Choice Library Journal American Libraries Against the Grain Other(s) (please specify) answered question skipped question Response Percent 80.6% 86.3% 81.7% 30.1% 22.2% Response Count 348 373 353 130 96 432 48 19 Q13. Does publisher advertising in the journals to which you subscribe impact your decision-making? Answer Options Yes No answered question skipped question Response Percent 34.6% 65.4% Response Count 154 291 445 35 Q14. How big a role do faculty play in book, journal, and electronic resource acquisition decisions at your institution? Answer Options Very Important Somewhat Important Comments answered question skipped question Response Percent 67.5% 32.5% Response Count 299 144 108 443 37 Q15. How would you rate communication between faculty and librarians regarding acquisitions at your campus? Answer Options Excellent Very Good Good Fair Poor answered question skipped question Response Percent 16.3% 44.5% 29.5% 8.9% 0.7% Response Count 73 199 132 40 3 447 33 Q16. Do you receive regular visits from publisher representatives? Answer Options Yes No answered question skipped question Response Percent 26.5% 73.5% Response Count 117 325 442 38 20 Q17. How would you rate the importance of sales calls from publisher representatives? Answer Options Very Important Important Not Very Important Don't Receive Sales Calls answered question skipped question Response Percent 2.2% 16.7% 68.1% 12.9% Response Count 10 75 305 58 448 32 Q18. Do you prefer to receive information about new books from print or electronic sources? Answer Options Print Electronic answered question skipped question Response Percent 48.8% 51.2% Response Count 211 221 432 48 Q19. Which electronic resources do you routinely use? (You may choose more than one.) Answer Options E-mail Newsletters RSS Feeds Websites Blogs Don't use electronic resources answered question skipped question Response Percent 68.0% 17.2% 82.8% 12.5% 6.6% Response Count 300 76 365 55 29 441 39 Q20. Do you feel university presses generally do an adequate job of alerting you to new publications in your area? Answer Options Yes No answered question skipped question Response Percent 81.7% 18.3% Response Count 362 81 443 37 21 Q21. If you answered "no" to #13, do you have any specific comments about the efficacy of university press marketing and sales efforts directed at academic librarians? Answer Options answered question skipped question Response Count 60 420 Q22. From which library distributors do you routinely order books? (You may select more than one.) Answer Options Baker & Taylor Yankee Book Peddler Ingram Blackwell Coutts Midwest Library Service Other (please specify) answered question skipped question Response Percent 36.5% 50.0% 8.2% 39.5% 11.9% 20.3% 32.6% Response Count 160 219 36 173 52 89 143 438 42 Q23. With which library distributor does your library primarily do its ordering? (choose only one) Answer Options Baker & Taylor Yankee Book Peddler Ingram Blackwell Coutts Midwest Library Service Other (please specify) answered question skipped question Response Percent 20.0% 35.2% 3.0% 19.8% 2.3% 6.4% 13.3% Response Count 87 153 13 86 10 28 58 435 45 Q24. Do you receive book promotions from library distributors? Answer Options Yes No answered question skipped question Response Percent 64.4% 35.6% Response Count 280 155 435 45 22 Q25. Do you subscribe to electronic newsletters announcing new books that are available from library distributors? Answer Options Yes No answered question skipped question Response Percent 41.0% 59.0% Response Count 180 259 439 41 Q26. Rate the impact on your decision-making of the following marketing communications from library distributors. Answer Options Not Very Useful Useful Very Useful Critical Rating Average Response Count Advertising 250 143 198 22 66 98 87 83 26 3 13 14 8 32 3 1.47 1.87 2.03 1.86 1.95 1.37 418 425 422 414 422 413 430 50 E-mail & Newsletters 148 Pre-Publication Promotions 113 197 Printed Brochures 162 157 Catalogs 170 137 Sales Visits 292 92 answered question skipped question Q27. Do you have any general comments on the relationship between library distributors and collection develop & acquisition staff? Answer Options answered question skipped question Response Count 81 399 Q28. Do you subscribe to library ebook programs or aggregators of book content for the library market? Answer Options Yes No answered question skipped question Response Percent 73.6% 28.0% Response Count 320 122 435 45 23 Q29. If you answered yes to #1 above, which programs? Answer Options Netlibrary eBrary EBL (eBook Library) MyiLibary Other (please specify) answered question skipped question Response Percent 84.7% 29.4% 6.7% 6.4% 25.1% Response Count 277 96 22 21 82 327 153 Q30. Has your overall print book budget increased, decreased, or stayed roughly the same in the last five years? Answer Options Increased Decreased Stay about the Same Don't Know/Can't Answer answered question skipped question Response Percent 20.5% 33.0% 43.0% 3.6% Response Count 90 145 189 16 440 40 Q31. Has an increase in expenditures for electronic resources at your institution's library required you to allocate fewer funds to the purchasing of print books? Answer Options Yes No Comments 38 answered question 426 skipped question 54 Response Percent 67.4% 32.6% Response Count 287 139 Q32. In the following broad subject categories have your print and electronic budgets increased, decreased, or stayed roughly the same over the last five years? Answer Options Increased Decreased About the Same Can't Answer/ Don't Know Response Count Humanities 104 Social Sciences 113 Natural & Physical Sciences 133 Medicine 80 Law 38 answered question 432 skipped question 48 62 59 60 46 45 189 180 148 130 125 67 69 76 147 191 422 421 417 403 399 24 Q33. If a book is simultaneously published in cloth and paperback bindings is there a multiplier of the paperback price that your library uses to restrict purchases of cloth editions? If so, roughly what is the multiplier? Answer Options 1.5 2 2.5 3 Always order paperbacks when available Always order cloth irrespective of price Don't Know or Can't Answer Response Percent 4.7% 5.3% 2.3% 1.4% 47.4% 11.9% 27.0% answered question skipped question Response Count 20 23 10 6 204 51 116 430 50 Q34. Are there areas where print collections are being replaced rather than augmented by electronic resources? Please specify? Answer Options Reference Journals Monographs Other (please specify) answered question skipped question Response Percent 63.8% 87.8% 9.2% 9.2% Response Count 250 344 36 36 392 88 Q35. Is there a mandate at your institution to acquire more ebooks? Answer Options Yes No answered question skipped question Response Percent 18.6% 81.4% Response Count 81 354 435 45 Q36. Please provide any additional comments you might have about ebook acquisition at your institution. (Optional) Answer Options answered question skipped question Response Count 121 359 25