Patron Driven Acquisition of Resources

Patron-Driven Acquisition and the Educational Mission of the Academic Library.

Patron-driven acquisition (PDA) of resources is also known as “demand-driven acquisitions” or “patron initiated purchasing”.
PDA programs allow patrons to select and purchase books for the library without the permission of the librarian. PDA doesn’t always improve the library collection, but it does satisfy the immediate needs of students and faculty.
PDA program can be linked to Inter-Library Loans (ILL), which are often print based resources, or can be initiated in direct response to selection by patrons. Either way, the PDA program needs to have clearly defined parameters for purchase, to meet the information needs of patrons and to prevent over-purchasing of resources. (Walters, 2012)
Patron-driven acquisition is not suitable for all library situations.  PDA is probably not suitable to a school library environment for students to purchase resources, however, with clearly defined parameters, as mentioned by Walters (2012), teachers could be given the opportunity to purchase for the library, especially resources that they continually use in their classroom and could be of benefit to other teachers if they had the same resource.



Walters, W. H. (2012). Patron-Driven Acquisition and the Educational Mission of the Academic Library. Library Resources and Technical Services , 56 (3), 199-213.