Hello,

With apologies, I have been meaning to summarise responses for these lists for a while now, but have not had an opportunity to date.

If you recall, I asked (back, before Christmas) whether any institutions had installed and were using the Raptor toolkit: if so, what were their reactions to it; if not, what were they using instead.

Our context is that we have a devolved Library budget, and are looking at ways to share out the costs of large packages (e.g. ScienceDirect) or databases (e.g. Web of Knowledge) across Schools. Relative usage of resources at School level could help inform what models we develop. This need is slightly different to the title level (Counter download) statistics already available via JUSP - although I personally, am interested in solutions to that as well, particularly something that could tie the two ends (school based access and title level usage) together. I understand that Ross MacIntyre (MIMAS), and Rhys Smith (RAPTOR), have already entered into dialogue about the possibility of submitting a JISC project proposal to this end.

Five institutions replied to my original request (many thanks all!), several others said they would be interested in the responses.

The National Library of Wales have, like us, set up a limited pilot
The Barrington Library (Cranfield University), are investigating Raptor (any progress guys?)
Kings College London were in the same position as Kent before Christmas, and looking at Raptor with interest back then (again, any progress?)

Sheffield Hallam: have just started using JUSP alongside 360 counter to tally up their Counter statistics
The Open University: use JUSP alongside EXLibris' UStat to manage their Counter statistics. They also conduct basic reporting on EZProxy log files

The outcome of all this, is that we have installed the Raptor toolkit, and are running a six month pilot, after which it will be assessed. Our own systems team would prefer not to have an additional resource to support if possible, and as they have existing reporting requirements, would like a solution that ties all these needs together. While the Raptor pilot is running, they have time to look into a lighter touch way to interrogate the EZProxy and Shibboleth logs using Perl scripts. Then we shall have a look at the results of both options side by side.

We would welcome dialogue with other institutions also trialling the Raptor toolkit. Chris Brown from JISC (programme manager for the RAPTOR work), has indicated that they would be interested in linking together pilot institutions to carry out a more formal evaluation.

Regards,
Jason Harper

Academic Liaison Librarian (Social Sciences)
University of Kent, Canterbury

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