Usage Statistics for Academic

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Usage Statistics for Academic Consortia
Libraries

• NFAIS Forum October 1, 2004 Online Usage
  Statistics Current Trends and Future Directions
  in Meeting User NeedsChris Martire
• Manager, Cooperative Purchasing PALINET
• martire_at_palinet.org

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PALINET Background

• PALINET is a nonprofit membership organization
  serving libraries and cultural institutions since
  1936. PALINETs 600 members represent all types
  of libraries in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey,
  Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and neighboring
  states. PALINET provides premier educational
  opportunities through classroom and online
  distance learning. It also offers a cooperative
  purchasing program with member discounts from
  major library vendors. PALINET is OCLCs
  mid-Atlantic region service provider.

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Were making Progress

• ICOLC
• COUNTER
• NISO
• ARLs eMetrics

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But, our Challenge Increases as the Number of
Products Grows

• Not all products conform to COUNTER, therefore
  library staff required to spend significant time
  in data manipulation prior to finalizing reports
• Growing number of resources make it
  time-consuming to manage and difficult to assess

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For Example

• How many resources does a typical academic
  institution display on their website?
• For each of these resources, usage statistics
  need to be obtained, manipulated, and massaged

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Academic LibrariesElectronic Resources

• 110 e-Resources for previous example
• Within each of these 110, there is overlap among
  journal titles, so reports must be merged and
  then summarized
• Now imagine doing this for 13,384 eResources (for
  a PALINET academic research library)

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Why Usage Reports?

• Support Selection Guidelines and Policies
• Identify possible usability issues and training
  requirements
• Identify new areas for collection development
• Inform offsite print location strategies
• Monitor availability, access and ensure what is
  available is what is purchased

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Why Usage Reports?

• Confirm high-usage resources
• Establish print cancellation targets and/or
  migration to electronic-only subscriptions.
• Gateway measurement as it relates to usage
  (online catalog usage)
• JUSTIFY EXPENDITURES

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Categories of Usage Statistics

• Content Per journal statistics used to compare
  individual journal titles
• Content summaries across all content, aggregated
  over time
• Content summaries across consortia or groups
• General summaries web metrics active IPs,
  sessions, page views, registered users, searches

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Coming Soon /Whats Needed?

• COUNTER standard for eBooks, e-Reference
• Need for statistics for music, audio, photos,
  images, video, etc.
• ANDevaluation of this
• USAGE ? VALUE
• How to measure outcomes

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Summary

• Statistics have always been required within the
  library and in the electronic age, we have more
  than ever before
• What percentage of vendor products are
  COUNTER-compliant now?
• Usage statistics are just part of an overall
  approach to Electronic Resource Management (see
  DLF Initiatve, August 04)