Usage Statistics at UNLV Libraries

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Usage Statistics at UNLV Libraries

• Collection and Assessment

Cory Tucker Head of Collection Management Universi
ty of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries XXVIII Annual
Charleston Conference Nov. 7, 2008, Charleston,
SC
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UNLV Libraries

• Over 18,000 FTE
• More than 800 full-time Faculty
• Carnegie Classification Research University
  (High)

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Electronic Resources

• Over 300 online databases
• Journals
• 1,800 print
• 270 print electronic
• 8,189 online only - publisher - single and
  package titles
• 10,000 online only aggregator
• 6,908 online only - Open Access
• 53, 237 ebooks

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Collections Budget

• 87 on Serials
• 13 Monographs (and 1-time)
• Budget cuts looming!

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Why we collect use statistics?

• Begins the investigative process
• Budget justification
• Combine with other data to make decisions
• Lead to improved marketing and promotion
  practices
• Feedback to the vendor

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Use Statistics Collection

• Harvest quarterly
• Harvest after the 15th of the month
• Student worker harvests statistics
• Support staff inputs data solves problems
• Cost effective solution

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Vendor Spreadsheet

• Develop a database of vendors
• Set up a simple spreadsheet
• Vendor name
• Titles of electronic resources
• Distribution
• URL
• Notes
• Login
• Password
• Date record is updated

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Usage Statistics Spreadsheet

• Vendor
• Title of electronic resource
• Monthly searches full text views
• Total Searches full text views
• Annual cost of product
• Cost per search full text view

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Spreadsheet
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Use statistics allow us

• to justify purchases
• to cancel subscriptions
• to aggressively market less used resources
• to upgrade existing resources
• to aid in strategic planning
• to obtain end of year money from University
  Administration
• to compliment existing subscriptions with
  addition of backfile purchases
• to help make decisions in Add One/Drop One
• to aid in collection assessment

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Collection Assessment

• Started in Spring of 2007
• Collected 5-years of usage data
• Included inflation calculations and percentage
  increase/decrease
• Added in all usage and calculated percentage
  increase and decrease in use
• Noticed trends in usage

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Other Statistics

• Use statistics from Serials Solutions
• Queries from SFX

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Results Database Trends

• Overall had increase of use for databases
• 64 increased usage
• 36 decreased usage
• Inflation averaged 10

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Results E-book Trends

• number of titles accessed increased 34
• User sessions increased 44
• Pages viewed grew 63
• Pages copied went up 38
• Pages printed increased 31

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Results Journal Backfiles

• Elsevier 44 increase
• Wiley 82 increase
• Springer 412 increase

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Collection Assessment

• Had a lot of usage data
• Now that we collected it, how are we going to use
  it?
• Comparing apples to oranges
• Bringing use stats into decision making

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What we did with use stats

• Organized electronic resources into like or
  similar groupings
• Created benchmarks
• Inserted benchmarks into collections policies
  Libraries Collection Development and Serials
  policies

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Electronic Resource Categories

• Electronic journal subscriptions
• Index Abstract databases
• Full-text Aggregator databases
• Other Full-text databases
• Electronic journal packages
• ebook subscriptions

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Benchmarks

• Must have 3 years of usage data
• Cost per use or cost per full-text view
• Inflation rate 10
• Cost to obtain journal through ILL

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Results

• Databases Identified over 60 databases for
  cancellation
• Journals Identified over 500 journals (both
  print and electronic) for cancellation
• Added benchmarks in CD policies
• Setting up Internet site to display usage data
  for liaisons and faculty. Example

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Future Ideas

• Benchmarking locally
• Benchmarking with other libraries
• Benchmarking with consortias
• Combine usage stats with interface evaluations
• Information seeking habits of users