From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2017 19:27:39 -0700

Steve, thanks for this very helpful post.  You press me to think why I
think they would disappear if we subscribed to the e-version and
cataloged them all at the item level.

Yes, they would be there, and you could find them.  If you were
attached to the series as such, you could search on the series -- but
then get 500 hits.  If you were really attracted to the series and had
a topic in mind, you could try keywords to find a single topic but it
would often be inefficient.  So what would bring these to the
attention of real undergraduates in a way that gets usage we think is
worth what we pay for them?  I think this is an interesting
intellectual puzzle with wider range in the current library:  how to
make people aware of the invisible?

One thought we are exploring is to buy a print set (cheaper than a
year's subscription to the e-version with a reasonable number of
simultaneous users), shelve them together in a visible way that would
attract use, and then press the vendor for a by-the-drink price for
e-versions when requested.  Then we might get some real usage.  Or at
least that's the hypothesis.   (Two other small facts:  the e-versions
I've seen are as poor as, in my view, e-books generally are:  hard to
read on a laptop; and the Amazon Kindle price is $6, Amazon paper copy
price is $7.50, official list price is $11 or so.  I won't say what
we're hearing from the vendor in pricing out of respect for them, but
will just say that an ongoing e-subscription would add up over the
years to quite a bit more per-title.)

Continuing to meditate, and thanks for both on-list and private
messages about this.

Jim O'Donnell
ASU



On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 3:38 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2017 13:55:59 -0700
>
> Several private messages supplement the list discussion.  Here is one
> that I have permission to anonymize and forward to the list.  (I have
> already remonstrated that the "heavy hitters" on LIBLICENSE-L are
> eager to hear from smart colleagues everywhere!).
>
> Jim O'Donnell
>
>
> Dear Mr. O'Donnell,
>
> I hope you don't mind a direct email -- I feel a little presumptuous
> sending out a message to the entire list, given the "heavy hitters" on
> LIBLICENSE-L!
>
> Babylon U. ran a trial of the Very Short Introductions (VSI) about a
> year ago, which I managed. I didn't do much publicity other than a
> short blurb on our website, typical for new database trials. We
> received 4-5 pleas from students begging us to subscribe to the VSI
> package -- not a lot, but many more comments than we usually receive
> for new databases (crickets, usually). COUNTER reports also showed
> usage across a wide range of VSI titles during the trial.
>
> I hesitate to read too much into a small sample, but I do wonder if
> our students had some existing awareness of the VSI series, or if we
> had tapped into a hunger for reliable info that goes beyond
> Google/Wikipedia, but is still easily readable.
>
> That being said, my collection development colleagues ultimately
> passed on subscribing. We had already purchased some individual VSI
> titles (a mix of print and e-book), and my colleagues thought the
> package offered too much overlap to be a good deal for the price. At
> the time Oxford wasn't selling individual title access or "fill-in"
> deals -- one had to purchase groups of related titles -- although this
> may have changed.
>
>
>> On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 8:04 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2017 07:35:25 -0700
>>
>> Oxford Press publishes a series of useful and smart paperbacks under
>> the "Very Short Introductions" rubric:  502 volumes at last count on
>> topics like:
>>
>> Buddhist Ethics, Cancer, Catholicism, Chaos, Children's Literature,
>> Chinese Literature, Choice Theory, Christian Art, Citizenship, Civil
>> Engineering, Classics, Clausewitz, Climate
>>
>> They sell for about $8 each on Amazon.  A license for digital access
>> for a campus might cost as much as a complete print set I'm guessing.
>> They're very well done and offer an appreciably-better-than-Google
>> introduction to a wide variety of subjects.  But I worry that they
>> would disappear into our OPAC and be essentially invisible.  I'd be
>> tempted to buy the full print set and shelve them together in a
>> visible place:  interesting if that were a way to make the print
>> version get more use than digital would.
>>
>> So I write now to ask if anyone knows of library experience promoting
>> this series, either digital or print.
>>
>> Jim O'Donnell
>> Arizona State University