[Lswtalk] Suggestions for containing OD costs

Mon Jan 9 14:38:15 CST 2017

Kind of late in the day for increase of budget. My budget has been set for
2017, and I had to reduce a half-time position to stay at the 2016 levels.
My woe. I say reduce requests, just like we limit requests on physical
items, as well as ILL. We have some patrons that go to Amazon and select
10, 20 or more items, and there is no way they will read all, and before we
set a limit, it was a nightmare. Just because you can doesn't mean you
should. Are most of the titles purchased (all items), seeing use by more
than 2 or three patrons? I'm dropping Comics Plus because of lack of use, 2
or 3 patron a year is not justification enough for the cost.

If our budget increased a little next year, then I would be more than
willing to increase the amount. While many things for 2017 budget remain
the same as 2016, and there was no salary increase, other than for full
time employees, $300 a year, other costs are going through the roof.

Howard

On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 2:05 PM, Loretta Gharst <LGharst at calcasieu.lib.la.us>
wrote:

> Last email on OD budget.  At current rate of expenditure we will be
> underfunded for 2017.
>
> This is based on the weekly orders for the last couple of months.
>
> We can change some of the service – allow fewer requests per patron and/or
> increase funding.
>
>
>
> Below is kind of long and closes with question about ways to control cost
> of patron requests.
>
>
>
> Your suggestions welcome and hope to see you in February.
>
>
>
> Loretta
>
>
>
> *From:* Loretta Gharst
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 03, 2017 11:47 AM
> *To:* Michael Broussard; Debbie LeBeau
> *Subject:* RE: Overdrive carts ready
>
>
>
> Let’s talk about PRs.  My comments:
>
>
>
> Wow number of PR are growing a lot.
>
> Looking at the LSW OverDrive RTL statistics the monthly count for 2016 was
> 489 -661 requests, then in Nov jumped to 860 requests, in Dec was 1,018
> requests.
>
> *At the rate of the first cart in January we are looking at between
> 900-1,000 PR monthly. (This is raw number of requests before Mike edits.)*
>
>
>
> In 2016 we budgeted $278,000 for OverDrive in our budget and other library
> systems provided $40,000 (BPL $10,000 – thanks!), for total budget of
> $320,000.
>
> *According to Mike’s order spreadsheet we ordered $328,967.90 with
> OverDrive of which $171,772.42 was for PR.*
>
>
>
> I ran the number for PR by library system and Calcasieu patrons account
> for 2/3 of PR.  So the other LSW libraries are 1/3 of PR.
>
>
>
> 2017 OverDrive budget is $378,500 + at least $35,000 from LSW for minimum
> of $413,500.
>
> If 2017 orders average $10,000 a week that would be $520,000 and we could
> possibly be $100,000 short.
>
> Average of $8,000 a week would be OK, but thinking we need to do something
> to eliminate some more of the patron requests as that is the biggest single
> expense.
>
> (Also, this year discuss with LSW OverDrive consortia members increasing
> their contribution whether that be one time only, flat figure, or
> percentage of  budget so doesn’t hurt systems with smaller annual budgets.)
>
>
>
> Anyway, how about eliminating PR based on cost or pub date?
>
>
>
> Any suggestions?
>
>
>
> Please advise and thanks,
>
>
>
> Loretta
>
>
>
> *Mike’s Suggestions on How to Contain Costs:*
>
>
>
> Are we still going to be purchasing MARC records for LSW? That would give
> us a tiny amount of extra money each month.
>
>
>
> *If ya’ll are in agreement we could maybe limit the amount of requests a
> patron can place for OverDrive --- currently we allow 1 for every 1 day
> which amounts to 7 a week with 1 library card. And remember we determined
> some patrons have more than 1 library card ----children, spouse, etc… that
> they can use to place recommendations on.*
>
>
>
> *Before we start limiting by price or publication date (harder to manage
> and no place for us to state our limitations on LSW website so every
> library system would have to explain in some way to their patrons) I think
> maybe we should explore maybe only letting patrons request 1 item every 3
> days or something like that (I think 2-4 recommendations per week is
> adequate), or at least less than 7 per week per library card.*
>
>
>
> *At least by limiting their requests the LSW site would let them know that
> they have reached their limit – and then they can try again later.*
>
> Also, I think staff, either with our system or other systems, have learned
> that all they need to do is place a hold on a request and we will more than
> likely purchase it.
>
> Some titles I notice that were in PR cart then don’t get checked out
> because the patron (or staff member) just cancels the hold once we have
> purchased it.
>
> Maybe it needs to be stressed again to our staff and all of LSW that the
> longest you would wait for a digital title if already released would be 7
> days so no need to get “just in case someone might want it”   ---- if staff
> asks then no they don’t need to do selection for OverDrive because it is
> already patron driven and we select most of the prominent authors and also
> select the bestsellers.
>
> The LSW consortia money  ($5000 or higher) is to be a member of LSW
> OverDrive Consortia and includes us doing the ordering work for them while
> providing access to all the resources that have already been purchased. It
> would help to offset the costs if any selection they want to do above, say
> $500 a year, could come out of their own budget not the money they
> contributed to the consortia.
>
> We could monitor and after $500 we wouldn’t purchase any carts for them
> but they are welcome to purchase anything they want from their own
> OverDrive marketplace log-in and use their own account.
>
> For only $5000 a year “membership fee” they have access to an extremely
> robust collection in OverDrive thanks to all of us combining resources.
>
>
>
> Currently for fiction titles we purchase no matter what the publication
> year is. Some really old books have only recently (last 10 years or so)
> become available as digital, and some are just plain old.
>
> Currently for non-fiction titles I don’t purchase anything older than 10
> years, but I need to know if I should go by on-sale date or street date for
> the year ---- these can have a huge difference. I have been going by street
> date not on-sale date to purchase non-fiction titles. If I go by on-sale
> date then a lot of PR non-fiction titles would not get purchased.
>
>
>
> *Just want to point out that the publication year doesn’t actually show up
> on LSW site so patron doesn’t actually know how old it is.*
>
>
>
> *Anyway, please be thinking about this and maybe we can vote on more
> limits for patron requests per user. *
>
> *Instead of 7 per week, make it 4 per week or 2 per week?*
>
>
>
> Please advise and thanks,
>
>
>
> Loretta
>
>
>
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>

-- 
Howard L. Coy Jr., Director
Vernon Parish Library
1401 Nolan Trace
Leesville, LA 71446
337-239-2027 or 800-737-2231
www.vernon.lib.la.us
hcoy at state.lib.la.us

Don't prepare the road for your child, prepare your child for the road.

"Any government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to
take everything you have."
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