Library Acquisition Patterns

Daniel, Katherine, Joseph J.  Esposito, and Roger C.  Schonfeld. Library Acquisition Patterns  New York, NY: Ithaka S+R, 29 January 2019.(https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/2019-report-library-acquisition-patterns/). - This publication reports on the work of the Library Acquisition Patterns (LAP) project supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to examine trends in the purchasing of US academic libraries. A few of the findings of the project include: "Serials and other continuing resources...account for more than 60 percent of total materials expenditures; books, many of which are one-time resource expenditures, constitute 24.5 percent of materials expenditures, Libraries spend 42.6 percent of their print book budgets on humanities titles. Forty-nine percent of books added by libraries to their collections were in the humanities...The average cost of an e-book in our sample rose by 35 percent between 2014 and 2017, while the cost of print books remained stable...GOBI and Amazon were the leading vendors of print books in our sample." There are a number of other findings, so those interested in trends in academic library purchasing would do well to absorb this entire 40-some page summary. - RT