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