Assessment

The Gift and Deselection Manager Online will have multiple effects on the teaching and learning capabilities of each SUNY campus.

The first effect is to increase the holdings of the libraries using GDM Online through the acceptance and processing of gifts. Milne Library, at SUNY Geneseo, received and processed 5,280 gifts for the year of 2012. Of these 5,280 gifts, 18 percent (917) of these items were kept for use at the library and effectively added approximately $22,000 worth of materials to the library collection. The remaining gifts that were not added to the collection were sent to Better World Books and $2,037.52 was returned from sales that went into purchasing additional materials for the 2012 calendar year. If each library in SUNY were able to achieve similar results, then over $1,300,000 would be added to the combined SUNY collection each year with gifts in addition to a sum of $120,000 being returned from sales at Better World Books. In total, approximately $1.5 million of additional collection materials and purchasing power would be added to SUNY libraries. The GDM Online will store the value of the items added to the collections at each library, allowing for reports to be generated monthly, yearly, and for one college library or for all SUNY libraries. Revenue from Better World books would need to be entered manually to allow for revenue reports to be generated.

The second effect is to trim library holdings by deselecting zero or low use items from a library’s collection while determining if those items would be desired by other libraries or would generate revenue if sent to Better World Books. Libraries have limited shelf space and cannot store all of the older materials while providing space for new items. Items that haven’t been used in over a year are candidates for deselection. By using GDM Online, a library can run a list of zero use items and determine if any still fit their collection profile. Those that don’t fit the profile can be sent to Better World Books or to another library that shows need based on their own collection profile. SUNY Geneseo weeded approximately 14,000 items in 2012 and received $7,290 from Better World Books. Extrapolating this out to all of SUNY, revenue of over $400,000 could be generated and used for additional collection materials. GDM Online would allow for a report to be generated of items that have been deselected, a report of items sent to other libraries, and a report of items sent to Better World Books. Again, revenue from Better World Books would need to be entered manually to allow for revenue reports to be generated.

The third effect is to process specialized item lists against the holdings of an individual library and all SUNY libraries. At each individual library, a textbook list generated through GDM Online would allow for the identification of textbooks that are available in different areas of the library so that those items could be consolidated into library reserves for use in coordination with college courses. Textbooks on reserve allow students to reduce the costs of their education by borrowing their textbooks for a few hours a day instead of spending hundreds of dollars per semester. During the fall of 2011, students spent an average of $330 for textbooks . A report from GDM Online could be generated to list out the number and value of textbooks held at each library. Usage of these reserve textbooks could be reported from the Integrated Library System (circulation system) at each SUNY library to help make decisions about holding items with the reserve collection.

The fourth effect would be to discover unique items that are in the public domain and have not yet been digitized. These materials could be digitized and added to a digital repository or published into Amazon for Print on Demand. Items set for Print on Demand would return a small sum of money per printed copy to the library that provided the digitized copy. Revenue from Amazon would need to be entered manually to GDM Online to allow for revenue reports to be generated. A report of digital items created by libraries participating in digitization projects could be generated to provide SUNY with a list of unique and freely available digital materials to all libraries and the world. The consolidation and sharing of these unique items would highlight the work that SUNY has begun in making scholarship accessible to everyone.

The measure of success for this project will be determined by the number of libraries that use GDM Online, the amount of collection revenue generated by all libraries using the system for gift processing and deselection and, most importantly, the additional resources that have been made available to the students and faculty of SUNY through enhanced collection development, textbook reserves, and digitization efforts.

IDS Project will be making GDM Online available for free to all SUNY and IDS libraries during the Fall semester. GDM Online will be advertized on the IDS website and offered for a subscription fee to non-IDS/SUNY libraries.

Project Outcome Report