How much should we be willing to pay for a use?

We pay around $5000 for our annual World Book Online subscription* here in our district of 7700 students. It is a resource we've had for many years, is prominently displayed on our student resources webpage as well as all media center pages, has a great reputation, is accessible from students' homes as well as at school, is a required resource for elementary library classes, and includes instructional resources for teachers. Most of us, even old guys like me, grew up with World Book so it's a sentimental favorite as well. 

But we may drop the subscription. Here's why: the usage just isn't there. 

We're paying $.70 a search. With less than one search per student being done in the past year.

When teachers were asked how important World Book Online is the response was underwhelming:

I can think of a number of reasons for the lack of the use of this fine resource:

• It's been replaced in many searchers' tool kit by Wikipedia
• We as librarians simply don't remind teachers and students of its availability and usefulness
• Teachers just aren't asking kids to do much research

Yet I am reluctant to drop this resource, despite these numbers. Children and adults alike, my library school professors beat into me, need access to vetted, authoritative information sources. Dropping paid database and reference subscriptions would be throwing my learners and researchers to the commercial Internet dogs**.

How do you determine if you are getting your bitcoin's worth of use from a paid resource - whether it is a reference source, full-text database, e-book subscription, or set of teaching products?

Inquiring minds want to know. This to me will be of growing importance as we build and balance our K-12 e-resource collections.

* This is for the Advanced Reference package which includes 5 products: TImelines, Kids, Student, Advanced and Spanish.

** OK, we do have some state-wide resources available as well, so it's not quite that dramatic.

Comments

[Teri]

Boy, isn't this the dilemma of the day! I constantly (well, ok, yearly) review my paid subscriptions for use and usefulness. I don't always find that the two are the same. I, too, would be loathe to cancel the World Book subscription, because we know as librarians that we must provide content rich resources. But if they won't use them????? Then what? Wikipedia and Google are good enough, in their minds - and faster. The solution might be better coordination between classroom teachers and the library, to really ready our students for the (hopefully) more rigorous research they will be doing in college.

[Mary Seligman]

I think this problem is pretty universal. One of the things librarians can do is market the resources to content area teachers. I'll often have conversations with teachers about possible projects for their classes. In addition to teaching information literacy skills, I view my role as a support to teachers. With all of the Common Core hoops to jump through, classroom teachers can feel too overwhelmed to begin coming up with research projects that will work for the kids and fulfill curricular needs. If I can be part of the project design process, I can influence the requirements of the assignment and focus students on both digital and print resources.
It takes time to build a following of teachers in the building. I began with one teacher and built from there. When other teachers saw that I could make their lives simpler, they slowly started to work with me. Is everyone on board? Not at all. Progress happens in incremental steps, not leaps.

[Lisa Nerpio]

Another reason for non-use in our district is the unreliability of internet connections. When it takes one of my teachers 25 of her 30 minutes with a small group of English Language Learners to just log on to the computers and get to the World Book site or another class can only get, if they are lucky, half the laptops to actually connect to the internet, it's no wonder they don't use the resource no matter how heavily I promote it to the teachers, students and parents.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Teri,

It's always been tough tracking the use of print reference sources as well, so maybe we are singling out online sources. I wish somebody would come up with a "pay-per-use" model - $.10 a search or something. The company would then have a vested interest in helping continue to "sell" their own products.

Thanks for the comment,

Doug

Hi Mary,

Solid advice. Thank you!

Doug

Hi Lisa,

Good point. Without a solid infrastructure underlying all technology uses, getting teachers or students to use even the best product is tough.

Doug

[Pat Minikel]

I think it is our job as librarians to encourage more teachers and students to learn the advantages of and make use of this valuable resource as well as other databases. We need to steer students away from only using Wikipedia and google for everything or when they go to college that will be all they know.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Pat,

I agree wholeheartedly, but I think we need some new strategies to do this promotion. It's not like we do with physical books and set up a display. See:

http://www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/ten-ways-to-promote-online-resources.html

All the best,

Doug

[Holli]

This is a constant struggle for me. Is the cost worth it? We have close to 30,000 students so my Worldbook subscription is substantially more. I consider it part of our job to help prepare students to ethically use information and know how to access it when they leave our public school systems. One of the local colleges biggest complaint about our students is they do not know how to use databases and still try to cite Wikipedia and Google on academic papers. I have worked with the elementary library staff (not certified) for several years now so that they are comfortable teaching World Book and are now ready to make the transition to using databases and e-books. Many of our poorer schools have no library budget, so these databases no matter what the cost are essential for student learning in those schools.

[Doug Johnson]

Thanks for the message, Holli. Sort of nice to know I am not the only one who struggles with these decisions.

All the best,

Doug

[Floyd Pentlin]

Approaching half of the respondents never heard of it (43%)? Really? Never used it I can easily believe. Another verification of what a struggle it is to get students and staff to use the "good stuff."

However, let me wade into deep waters here and wonder if having students get information from an encyclopedia does really prepare them for anything. Generally speaking, most teachers won't allow information from a general encyclopedia -- certainly not as go up the educational ladder. Also, at what point do we start teaching students to critically evaluate information -- from whatever source they are using? Should we be encouraging students to think that any source is always correct?

Just thinking out loud.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Floyd,

It was the staff who replied they's never heard of World Book Online - and to me that is a little frightening. I am thinking our media centers may need large screen displays just to promote electronic resources much as we create print displays now.

I've always thought the general reference source was a good overview of a topic, although even I use Wikipedia, not World Book or EB, to get it. Changing times, I guess.

Doug

[peluang usaha untuk mahasiswa]

Thanks for the message, Holli. Sort of nice to know I am not the only one who struggles with these decisions...!!!