Each PDA profile has two parts:
- A set of search criteria
- A collection of titles
The typical approach to setting up a PDA profile is:
- Set up the search criteria
- Run the search
- Add all the titles returned by the search to the collection
- Make that collection of titles active and available for your patrons to use
The search criteria and the collection are in some ways separate and distinct:
- If you want to add a title to your collection even though it doesn’t meet your search criteria, you can manually add it to your collection. (So note, you can end up with titles in your collection that don’t match your search criteria).
- If you make your search criteria LESS restrictive, and then run your search, what you have is a set of titles being recommended to add to your collection. But… they aren’t automatically added to your collection. You have to select the titles you want to add from that list (perhaps use “Select All”), then add them to your collection. Once they are added to your collection (and the collection is active) they are available to your patrons.
- If you make your search MORE restrictive – such as reducing the list price to be 1-200 instead of 1-400, then when you re-run the search probably no new titles would come up (because the search is more restrictive). At that point your search criteria is set, but… it doesn’t automatically remove titles in your collection that don’t meet this new restriction. Instead, you have to go into your collection and manually remove those titles. So in this example, you would need to go to your profile collection, search for all titles with a list price 201-400 and remove all those titles.
The key to understanding PDA is recognizing that the search criteria and the collection are separate. The search criteria can be used to add titles to the collection, but not to take titles out of the collection. And the collection can be modified directly to either adding or removing titles – regardless of whether they match your search criteria.
1. Go to your ebrary site and sign in to your ebrary account
2. Click the Admin tab, then ACQUISITION tab
3. Click-to-select Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA)
4. OPTION A to limit by SUBJECT then PUBLISHER:
- Click Find by Subject
- Click to select the subject(s) to include (click + to narrow a subject further)
- Click Show Publishers
- Click to select the publisher(s) to include, or click “Select All Publishers” then click to remove specific publishers
- OPTION 1 if your search criteria is complete, click Show Documents
- OPTION 2 to narrow with additional search criteria, click Filter, enter search criteria, click Filter
… OPTION B to limit using the usual ADVANCED SEARCH features:
- Click Advanced Search
- It should come up with the PDA eligible collection already selected
- Enter search criteria
- Click Search ebrary
5. At this point, you will have a collection of titles that have met all your search criteria. Select only the titles in this list that you want to make available in your PDA collection (or click Select All).
6. Click Create PDA profile
7. Follow the prompts to name your profile, fill in your email, etc. Be sure the PDA box is checked. If you’re using fund codes, assign one. This is also where you can choose the option of “Loan first”.
8. Click Create. For alert that non-PDA-eligible titles will be removed, click OK.
That’s it. Your profile will have then been created! It has a search criteria and a collection. You can take a closer look at your collection (and narrow it further) by clicking the “View Collection” link in the PROFILE tab. Your profile collection should only include titles you want your patrons to access and potentially trigger for purchase.
After completing the above steps, the titles in your PDA collection will be active on your ebrary site once:
- ebrary’s Order Fulfillment team has designated funds to your PDA account
(check this under the LOAN/PDA tab)
- The profile’s associated fund code (if you assigned one) is enabled
(check this under the FUND CODE tab)
And at that point you will also have access to the ebrary MARC records for all the titles in your collection.
Any of the following usage will trigger the purchase (or loan) of a PDA title:
- 10 pages viewed in a single browser session (other than front or back matter), or
- 10 minutes of viewing* in a single browser session (other than front or back matter), or
- 1 print (of any page other than front or back matter), or
- 1 copy (of any page other than front or back matter), or
- 1 download of any type.
*Note re 10 minutes of viewing: If you view a page for 5 minutes flip the page and then view the next page for 6 minutes, nothing is triggered until you flip to another page. Then it realizes you really were reading that previous page and so counts those minutes. 11 total minutes of usage would be recorded.
Go to your ebrary site and sign in to your account with PDA admin privileges, then:
- Under the PROFILE tab, select View Collection for that profile,
- Click the Search Collection button (over at the right)
- Enter your search criteria to find the kind of titles you want to remove (e.g., Publisher is XYZ)
- Click to select individual titles to remove (or use Select All)
- Click the Remove Selection from Profile button.
This will remove all selected titles from the profile’s collection.
Once you remove these titles from the PDA collection (assuming it’s an active PDA collection), your MARC records page can be updated to reflect these changes right away. On your ebrary MARC records page, click “Update MARC Data”. This will cause a new dated/time-stamped line to appear, and the deleted titles will be listed in the “Deleted Titles” and “Deleted Titles (Excel)” links on that line.
One last thing to note is that the above steps 1-5 remove titles from your PDA profile collection, but it does not change your profile’s search criteria. So when your search is re-run, it will re-recommend these titles – unless you also change the profile’s search criteria.
If you view a document while in the ACQUISITIONS tab, it provides you a preview-only copy of the document and it won’t let you view more than is allowable in a preview setting. And because it is showing you a preview-only copy, that usage does not count toward triggering it for loan or purchase.
However, if you add a document to a PDA collection, and that PDA profile is active, then that document becomes a “live” document – it is no longer a preview-only document. If from the PROFILE tab you click “View Collection” you will have access to live documents. If from there you open one of the live documents and use it sufficiently, it will trigger a loan or purchase.
The important distinction to keep in mind is that:
- In the ACQUISITIONS tab you are viewing possible offerings. They are always preview-only and you cannot affect a trigger there.
- In the PROFILE tab, you may be viewing live collections and live documents. Opening and using a document in a live collection can trigger it.
- If a collection is paused or otherwise not-active (i.e, your PDA account is not yet active), then the documents you see when you view the collection are preview-only documents and you will only be allowed to view the preview maximum. It won’t count as triggerable usage.
1. Clear your working list as follows:
- Go to the Search tab (not the Admin tab)
- Click on the LIST tab
- Click “Select All“
- Click the “Remove Selection from List” button
2. Still in your working list, click the “Import/Export” button at the far right
3. Paste in a list of one of the following:
- A list of ISBN numbers (use multipe ISBN numbers for the same document if you have them, e.g. hardback, paperback, ebook ISBN)
- A list of titles (if there’s even a small difference in wording or punctuation, it won’t find the title)
- A list of ebrary docIDs (the most reliable)
4. Select the corresponding type by clicking the radio button for either ISBNs, Titles, or ebrary Doc IDs
5. Click the “Import” button. It will tell you how many titles were successfully imported to your working list
6. Click the “Return to Working List” button
7. There will be an entry in your working list for each document in your pasted-in list that matches one that ebrary offers
8. From your working list:
- “Select all“
- Click the “Update Profile with Selection” button
9. In the window that pops up:
- Select the appropriate profile from the drop-down list
- Click the “Remove” option
- Click the “Submit” button
10. All the titles in your Working List have now been removed from that collection
11. Repeat steps 8 and 9 for each of your profile collections.
Note that if you re-run a profile’s search, and new titles are added to the profile’s collection, you will need to do de-dupe the collection again.
First go to your ebrary site and sign in to your ebrary account, then:
TO SEARCH FOR AND ADD SPECIFIC TITLES:
1. Click Admin tab, then ACQUISITION tab, begin as if creating a new PDA profile:
- Click to select Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA)
- Click Advanced Search
- Enter search criteria
- Click Search ebrary
- Select title(s) to add to your collection
2. Click Save Selection to Profile button (far right)
3. Scroll down to section labeled: Add Documents to an Existing Profile
4. Select desired profile collection (from drop-down list)
5. Click Add Selected Documents
OR, TO ADD NEW TITLES THAT MATCH YOUR SEARCH CRITERIA:
1. Go to the PROFILE tab, click Run Search for the profile
2. From the list of new matches, select the title(s) to add to the profile collection
3. Click + Add to … button (top left) to add the selected titles to the profile collection
You can then go to the PROFILE tab and click View Collection to see that the selected titles have been added to the collection.
Go to your ebrary site and sign in to your account with PDA admin privileges, then:
- Under the PROFILE tab, select “Edit Profile” for that profile
- Click the “Edit Search Criteria” button (over at the right)
- Change the search criteria as desired
- Click “Search ebrary” (Important! This step is required to set the changes.)
- Click “Update Search Criteria” (over at the right) to save this new search criteria for the PDA profile.
Now when you use the “Run Search” command for this PDA profile, or when the system automatically runs the search for this PDA profile, the new search criteria will be used.
Important note! Editing the search criteria as above DOES NOT change the titles in the profile’s collection. It only changes the search criteria.
If you’ve narrowed your search criteria and want to REMOVE titles in the collection, see http://support.ebrary.com/english/1581
If you’ve broadened the search criteria and want to ADD titles to the collection, see http://support.ebrary.com/english/1604
You will receive ebrary Profile Alert emails informing you of new ebrary titles that match your PDA profile search criteria. These titles are NOT automatically added to your profile collection. To add one or more of the titles:
- From within the email, click the Update Profile link
This will take you to the list of new ebrary titles that match your search criteria. Note, newest titles are at the top, list will include all titles that match the search criteria and aren’t in the collection or on your site already.
- Click check-box to left of each title to include (or Select Page or Select All)
- Click + Add To … button (top left)
Those titles will then be part of your PDA collection.
If your PDA collection is active, the MARC records for these titles will be available to you. To access the MARC records right away, go to your ebrary MARC records page, click “Update MARC Data”, and a new line will appear that will include links to the MARC records for the new titles you’ve just added.
To change the frequency or email address of these emails:
- Go to PROFILE tab, click Edit Profile link.
Note, the Update Profile link in the email simply automates the following steps which you can do on your own at any time:
- Go to your ebrary site and sign in
- Go to Admin tab, PROFILE tab
- Click Run Search for the profile
The “ebrary PDA Report” is emailed to the admin(s) on file every week. It shows accumulated PDA activity for the past 12 months. We commonly refer to this report as the PDA Trigger Report. An important distinction in this report is between “Trigger” and “Usage” data:
- “Trigger” fields attempt to only show usage from the session in which the purchase (or loan) is triggered.
- “Usage” fields count all usage that occurs before the trigger session and after the trigger session, and includes usage that doesn’t count toward triggering (such as views of front/back matter).
Descriptions of terms:
- Views: The total number of views of any page in the book (going back to a page you already viewed counts as an additional view).
- If a user views pages 1, 2, 3, then 2 again, it counts as 4 views
- If two users each view pages 1, 2, and 3, it counts as 6 views
- Unique Pages Viewed: Among all the pages viewed in this book, this is the number of unique page numbers viewed.
- If 5 users all view page 3, it counts as 1 unique page viewed
- If 5 users all view pages 1, 2, then 1 again, it counts as 2 unique pages viewed
- Copies: The number of times the InfoTools “Copy” command was used.
- Prints: The number of pages printed.
- If a user prints the same page twice, it counts as 2 prints
- If a user prints pages 1-5 (5 pages), then pages 4-6 (3 pages), it counts as 8 prints
- Sessions: The number of times the book was handled by a user.
- If a user opens this book, closes it, then opens it again, it counts as 2 sessions
Odd cases that may arise:
- A book is triggered, but not purchased
- It may have triggered after the previous purchase cycle. If so, it will show as purchased on the following week’s report.
- If a book is also available on your ebrary site outside of PDA (in a subscription collection or as perpetual access, most likely added after your PDA collection was created), then it can accumulate large amounts of “Usage” data, but the system won’t allow it to be purchased while you already have it on your ebrary site.
- If a book used to be available on your ebrary site outside of PDA in a subscription collection, but it is no longer available for PDA (e.g., it has been removed from ebrary altogether), its old usage will still appear in the report for 12 months.
- A book seems to show sufficient “Usage” data, but isn’t triggered -
- Only views of content pages (versus front/back matter) count toward a book being triggered. However, views of front/back matter are tallied and shown in “Usage Views”.
- A book is triggered and purchased, but no “Trigger” data is shown -
- Currently download stats are not shown in this report, however downloading a book does trigger it for purchase. So if a book is triggered for purchase, but no trigger usage is shown, the purchase was triggered by download.
- Odd “Purchase Status” messages:
- Ebop_error_nsf – your PDA account was automatically disabled due to insufficient funds at some point after it was triggered, but before it could be purchased. If your PDA account is re-enabled, this book will be immediately purchased.
- Ebop_error – your PDA account was manually disabled at some point after it was triggered, but before it could be purchased. If your PDA account is re-enabled, this book will be immediately purchased.
- Hold - ebrary’s pdaaccount@ebrary.com team blocked this title on your site. Most likely it had been purchased, but you requested that it be credited back.
For info specific on Short-Term Loans (STLs) in the PDA trigger report, see:
http://support.ebrary.com/english/2170
If the funds in your PDA account are running low, the admin associated with the account should receive an email alerting them. If more funds are added before the PDA account runs out of funds, nothing will happen – the titles in your PDA collection(s) will continue to be accessible to your patrons.
If your PDA account runs out of funds, the PDA account will be suspended:
- All the profiles with their search criteria and collections will remain in place, but they will not be active.
- All the titles in the profile collections that have not already been purchased (and are not otherwise available on your site), will then no longer be available to patrons.
- That is, if a patron tries to access one of those titles by direct link, they will get a “Document not found” error.
- One caveat is that if they are signed in to their personal ebrary account, they will be shown a preview-copy of the document.
- They may not realize it is a preview copy unless they try to page through the content of the book; after about two pages, they will receive a notice they are viewing a preview-only copy.
- Once a PDA account is suspended, the MARC deletes for all the titles in your profile collections will be available. However, if you add funds and your PDA account is re-enabled before you click (or an auto run is done of) the “Update MARC data” button, then you won’t get MARC deletes and MARC adds – because there won’t be any net difference.
If there are titles that were triggered for purchase, but could not be purchased because the account ran out of funds:
- The titles will remain triggered, but will not be purchased until additional funds are added to the PDA account.
- These triggered but not purchased titles will show up on the trigger report with a status “error_nsf” for insufficient funds.
To add funds to your PDA account, contact pdaaccount@ebrary.com
STL stands for Short-Term Loan. When a PDA account is set up for PDA+STL, then for any document in the profile’s collection that is STL-eligible, if it receives trigger usage, it will first be loaned for the duration and number of times specified in the profile before being triggered for outright-purchase.
Once a document is triggered for a loan, it is available as a single-user-only (SUPO) document that can be accessed serially by multiple people for the loan duration.
Each loan is charged at a percentage of the document’s outright-purchase price; the loan charges do not count toward the outright-purchase price.
If there is loan activity, the admin of the profile will be emailed a report that day showing the day’s loan activity. The admin then has the option of either removing the document from being considered for future loans, purchasing it immediately (and thereby avoiding the cost of additional loans), or leaving it as it stands in the PDA+STL collection.
Loan activity is summarized in the weekly PDA trigger report alongside outright-purchase activity.
- When “Purchase Status” = “Triggered”, you cannot tell from the report whether it has been triggered for loan or for outright-purchase.
- Once “Puchase Status” = “Purchased”, you can distinguish a loan from an outright-purchase in two ways:
- The eBOP order name includes STL_…
- The “Purchase price” shown is only a percentage of the “List Price” shown
- For a loan, the “Trigger date” column shows the date the loan was initiated.
- Each loan of a particular document, as well as its ultimate purchase, is listed on a separate line.
- If there was only 1 loan of a particular document within a purchase period, then the “Purchase Quantity” will be 1.
- If there were 2 or more loans of a particular document within the same purchase period, the “Purchase Quantity” for each is the number of loans of that document in the purchase period, and the price is what will be charged in total for that document in that purchase period.
1. Do our PDA documents look different to our patrons?
No, to your patrons there is no difference between documents you have already purchased and documents in an active PDA collection(s). Patrons are not informed that by accessing a particular document they might trigger the purchase of it.
2. How soon after adding a document to a PDA collection does it become available to our patrons?
Documents added to an active PDA collection are accessible to your patrons as soon as you complete the process of adding documents to the PDA collection. For a PDA collection to be active, you need to have:
- Your PDA paperwork in place
- Your PDA funds in place
- If there is a fund code associated with the PDA collection, it needs to be enabled and it need to have sufficient funds assigned to it (fund codes are completely independent of your actual PDA funds).
All documents in your active PDA profiles are accessible to your patrons. Sufficient usage of a PDA document triggers its purchase. When a purchase is triggered, the only change is behind the scenes.
3. What triggers a PDA purchase?
PDA triggers are:
- 10 pages viewed (other than front or back matter), or
- 10 minutes viewing (other than front or back matter), or
- 1 print, or
- 1 copy, or
- 1 download of any type.
Note regarding the 10 minutes of usage: If you view a page for 5 minutes flip the page and then view the next page for 6 minutes, nothing is triggered until you flip to another page. Then it goes, aha, you really were reading that page. 11 total minutes of usage is recorded
4. We thought our PDA capability had been activated, but found it wasn’t – why not?
Your PDA profiles are not truly active until the proper paperwork and funds are in place. Look under the LOANS/PDA tab. If you see funds available there, then your paperwork and funds are in place.
5. Do I need to use fund codes?
No, using fund codes is optional. Fund codes are for your budgeting purposes and aren’t connected to your actual PDA funds. The only effect of fund codes is:
- If a fund code runs out of money, all profile collections with that fund code will be paused.
- If a fund code is paused, all profile collections with that fund code will be paused.
The dollar amounts in the fund codes are ‘funny money’, you can set them to be whatever you want.
6. When building a PDA profile, what’s the best way to screen out documents we already have in our ebrary subscription collections or ebrary perpetual archive (i.e., documents we’ve already purchased from ebrary)?
This is handled for you automatically when you are building your PDA profile.
The system will not allow PDA purchase of a document you already have in an ebrary subscription collection or in perpetual archive.
7. When the PDA box is checked off in a profile it weeds out documents from the profile list. Why, and what is it removing? How do we avoid including these documents in the first place?
When enabling a profile for PDA, it automatically drops all non-PDA-eligible documents.
To ensure that when you are picking documents to add to your PDA profile you only see PDA-eligible documents: in the Acquisition screen, before you start your search to build your profile, in step 1 to “Choose your acquisition model”, select “Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA)” so that your searches pre-filter for PDA eligibility.
8. What does the “Run” command do? Why do the results sometimes differ from the original results?
The “Run” command will run the search query that’s linked to the PDA profile. It will show results that match the search query, but are not already in the PDA collection. These consist of new documents that were not available when you created your PDA collection and/or documents that met your search criteria but that you decided not to include in your collection.
9. When a PDA purchase is triggered, does it generate a second MARC record to download?
As soon as your PDA collection was active, the MARC records for all the documents in the PDA collection were made available to you on your ebrary MARC records page. There won’t be any additions to the MARC records when a purchase is triggered.
The only difference is that if, for example, you delete or disable your PDA profile, the MARC records for documents that had not been triggered as purchases would show up in your “Deleted MARCs” downloads, but the MARC records for documents that had been triggered as purchases would not be.
You can import a list of ISBN numbers to see if they are available on ebrary. However, the ISBNs must be in certain formats.
Valid ISBN formats:
- 9 digits followed by an X
- 10 digits
- 13 digits
- no dashes, spaces, colons, etc.