Every library will have its own acquisition practices, evolved in some isolation in response to local circumstances and opportunities.  A new Ithaka S-R report uses the statistical possibilities of a common LSP system to take a first look at what can be known of current book-buying by a broad but thin sample of libraries (54 institutions of widely varying sizes and missions).

Everything about the report is necessarily preliminary and subject to change when the authors (Esposito and Schonfeld) go on to a larger data set.  Do Gobi (ex-YBP) and Amazon really hold 71% of the market share?  (The top 10 vendors include ones whose shares go down to under 1% -- which makes me ask, how big is this market?)  Are firm orders still really the order of the day?  And is DDA intrinsically hard to track?  The questions are interesting and important and whet the appetite for what can be learned from a much deeper dive.  The URL (short report, read online or download PDF):