Pioneering Partnerships: Building a Demand-Driven Consortium eBook Collection

Abstract

The article discusses the Orbis Cascade Alliance, a consortium of thirty six academic libraries in Oregon and Washington, and its mission to study and design a shared electronic book program. The Alliance was charged with developing a new ebook consortium purchasing model, an appropriate collection development model, and the funding model to support it. The authors discussed the demand-driven acquisition purchasing model, which is based on the purchases the ebook users make. Also discussed are the challenging issues of coordinating the collection and its funding among the Alliance, as well as the cataloging, discovery, and access of the ebooks by the Collaborative Technical Services Team. The authors also mention the ongoing collaboration with YBP, the preferred monograph vendor.