Books on Demand: Just-in-Time Acquisitions

Abstract

The Purdue University Libraries Interlibrary Loan unit proposed a pilot project to purchase patrons' loan requests from Amazon. com, lend them to the patrons, and then add the titles to the collection. Staff analyzed previous monograph loans, developed ordering criteria, implemented the proposal as a pilot project for six months, and evaluated the resulting patron comments, statistics, and staff perceptions. As a result of enthusiastic patron comments and a review of the project statistics, the program was extended.