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Academic libraries are buying fewer books than they used to, according to a new report by research service Ithaka S+R.
The "Library Acquisition Patterns" report, published today, sheds new light on where university libraries buy print and digital books, what they’re buying and how much they spend.
Prior to the publication of the data, the role of retail giant Amazon in library acquisitions was unknown -- leading some observers to suggest that data showing academic libraries buying fewer books may be inaccurate.
The Ithaka S+R report, which is based on data from 154 U.S. universities, shows that Amazon does play a significant role in library acquisitions, but perhaps not as big a role as some suspected.
Amazon was found to be the second-largest vendor of print books to academic libraries but trailed far behind book vendor GOBI -- which accounts for more than 70 percent of print book sales and 90 percent of ebooks. Amazon was not found to be a significant vendor of ebooks.
Other findings in the report include:
- The number of print books purchased by academic libraries between 2014 and 2017 decreased, but the number of ebooks increased. Increased spending on ebooks was not enough to offset decreased spending on print books over all.
- The average price of an ebook increased by 35 percent between 2014 and 2017, while the cost of print books remained stable.
- Libraries spent $3.61 million on information materials in 2017 on average and added 4,750 print books and 345 ebooks to their collections on an individual basis.
- Libraries spent 42.6 percent of their print book budgets on humanities titles. Social sciences was the biggest field for ebooks, accounting for 32 percent of acquisitions.
“This project marks a significant step in developing a database of information on books, both print and electronic, in the academic marketplace,” said Joseph Esposito, a publishing consultant and co-author of the report. “Heretofore all analyses were done from surveys and high-level statistics, but the current project is the first public examination of the actual information that libraries use to manage their operations.”
