Innovative collection development for e-books at the TU Delft Library

Thanks to new technologies libraries worldwide go digital and are accessible 24/7 from remote locations. The innovation is even more visible in traditional library tasks such as collection development and acquisitions. Those tasks are undergoing rapid transformation as well. One of the reasons is the current economic climate, leading to shrinking library budgets. The common “just in case” acquisition model becomes outdated. The TU Delft Library takes this challenge seriously and has a hybrid, “just in time” acquisition model, described in this paper. The new model combines Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA), introduced by Ebook Library (EBL), with our current approval plans for paper books at Blackwell Book Services. Our aim is to get our users involved in the collection development process, whilst maintaining our standard of service and controlling our budget in an efficient way.