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Hello there,

 

At Birmingham we are using Selection Support from Swets to analyse cost per use and also subscribed vs unsubscribed usage.

 

Selection Support has a ‘subscribed to’ flag which can be set to YES for our subscriptions. We can then pull out all the zero / low use titles that are subscriptions. We have had to do quite a bit of data entry initially to set up this service as we wanted it to take account of big deal unsubscribed usage etc. However, now this is set up, this is how we envisage it working:

 

1)       Report out zero / low use subscriptions

2)       Report out raw usage by title for each big deal – we have added a comment in for all titles that we get access to in big deals which are unsubscribed which we can filter by. This means we can identify high use titles that are unsubscribed but part of the deal

3)       We can look at all high usage that isn’t associated with big deals and is unsubscribed to look at identifying causes for usage (eg archive / back issue access only)

 

As I say, the initial customisation so that we can get what we want out of this product has been onerous. However, at least we only need to keep track of all the normal changes now eg new subscriptions / cancellations / big deal transfers etc.

 

What I would be interested in (and currently have to do manually) is cost per use of unsubscribed access in big deals by taking our access fee into consideration.

 

Of course the restriction of this type of product is that you can’t collect usage automatically from every single platform and so to make it more representative, you may need to add usage manually for platforms to supplement what is collected automatically which increases the staff time involved.

 

Regards

Sarah

 

Sarah Pearson

E-Resources & Serials Coordinator

Library Services

University of Birmingham

Edgbaston

Birmingham

UK

B15 2TT

Email: [log in to unmask]

Tel: 0121 414 5825


From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Crawshaw, Lesley A
Sent: 07 September 2009 12:33
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: [lib-stats] RE: Usage stats for non subscribed-to services

 

Hi Mike,

 

Thanks for this – it makes very interesting reading.

 

I have some more questions which  I hope you can answer for me:

1.       How do you deal with bundled titles i.e. journal subscriptions which come with other titles e.g. Art Book which comes as part of subscription to Art History – do you have to identify these yourself so that costs/download for example aren’t overestimated?

2.       How do you deal with title changes where usage appears both under the current title and the former title e.g. Literacy (formerly known as Reading until 2004) – do you have to identify these yourself so that costs/download for example aren’t overestimated?

3.       How do you deal with title transfers where usage is still being recorded on former publishers’ platforms – do you have to identify these yourself so that costs/download for that particular title isn’t overestimated?

4.       How do you deal with subscribed content that is on multiple platforms – e.g. Informa Healthcare content some of which is currently on IngentaConnect, InformaWorld, the new Atypon Informa Healthcare site and the soon to be superceded Atypon Informa Pharmaceutical Science site?

5.       Since it can be difficult with “big deals” to always know exactly what one has a right to access how can one easily deal with identifying what needs to be removed i.e. zero usage because one doesn’t have access, zero usage because a “subscribed” title isn’t being used (which may have a number of reasons including one doesn’t know it is a subscribed title within a deal!) etc.

 

I guess what I am trying to find out is how much additional work one needs to do with these types of products to make sure one has got the correct information at ones fingertips so that the right decisions are made about cancellations, renewals etc.

 

Cheers

Lesley

 

 

Lesley Crawshaw

Knowledge &  Business Intelligence Consultant

Information Hertfordshire

University of Hertfordshire

Tel: 01707 285508

 

Joint List Owner: [log in to unmask]

 

From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mike Poulin
Sent: 04 September 2009 19:32
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [lib-stats] RE: Usage stats for non subscribed-to services

 

Hi Lesley

We use SS Counter 360.  It does not make any relationship to the ownership / payment of titles unless you input the data. 

In my opinion - Wiley Blackwell is among the worst offenders as they return their entire contents of their stable of titles (over 1,900) with the reports.  It makes it difficult to see the titles you subscribe to vs the others.   SS will either load the entire file or, if you choose , you can edit the data prior to loading and just load the non-zero titles.  I go an extra step and add back in any of the subscribed titles which might have zero uses.  It takes a bit of work to accomplish this so is annoying.  My preference would be to have the option to filter out all zero use titles except those with subscriptions when gathering the stats. 

Once the data is in - you can add cost data if you subscribe to the titles individually or if you have a package - distribute the cost across the package.  Those titles with a cost will be those that are subscribed, those without will have no cost or cost per use associated with them.  If you don't add costs, then it is harder to identify the subscribed titles vs. non-subscribed.

In the those cases - one can add a weighting factor which can be used for a number of purposes - we use it specifically to identify the titles we subscribe to individually by our two main locations though other sites use it for other purposes.  One has to do it manually but the code is applied at the authority title level so you can run reports based on them which extracts all the use stats for a title from all its providers - e.g. Journal of Library Stats - if coded as an owned title - would show all providers - Jstor, aggregator databases, and the individual direct subscription.    It works well.

Mike

---------------------------------------
Mike Poulin
Digital Resources Librarian & Coordinator of Digital Initiatives
Colgate University Libraries
13 Oak Drive
Hamilton, NY 13346
315-228-7025
fax: 315-228-7934
[log in to unmask]


On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 4:48 AM, Crawshaw, Lesley A <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi,

One of the issues here seems to be inconsistencies in the way different services are recording usage. Some services seem to only show our subscribed usage e.g. NPG whereas others seem to show all usage including non-subscribed usage that may include trials, free issues, free backfiles etc. However, there are some services where one doesn't see the usage of e.g. free backfiles unless one has a subscription to those resources.

Whilst it maybe relatively easy to identify/isolate such non-subscribed usage for  "small/medium" publishers it is not as easy to isolate this data from "big deal" publishers.

Whilst I take Matthew's point that it offers a useful window on possible new subscriptions I would prefer that this usage didn't dirty the usage I am primarily interested in especially when different services have different interpretations of what usage should appear in a COUNTER report.

I'd be interested to know how services such as 360 COUNTER deal with this non-subscribed usage.

Cheers
Lesley


Lesley Crawshaw
Knowledge &  Business Intelligence Consultant
Information Hertfordshire
University of Hertfordshire
Tel: 01707 285508

Joint List Owner: [log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dyer, Renata
Sent: 04 September 2009 00:40
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [lib-stats] RE: Usage stats for non subscribed-to services [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Hi Sarah,
We just recently discovered that Palgrave recorded our subscription to one of their publications online against another account in their system. I am assuming that this other client would subsequently get our subscription included in their usage stats.

This has been rectified now but it took a while to get diagnosed.

The subscriptions was done through EBSCO and I am not sure what went wrong but I thought I'll share this particular scenario with you as one way to interpret incorrect usage report coverage.

Cheers,
Renata Dyer
Systems Librarian
Information Services - Treasury
Langton Cres, Parkes, ACT, Australia
ph: +61 2 62632736
e: [log in to unmask]


-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Taylor, Sarah
Sent: Thursday, 3 September 2009 11:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [lib-stats] Usage stats for non subscribed-to services


Hi all,

Apologies for may seem like a really odd question, but I've been
noticing a few strange things in some of our usage stats reports and
wondered if anyone had any words of wisdom!

Sometimes, when I request a report from a provider from whom we have a
number of services, I seem to have usage stats for services that we
don't actually pay for, nor do we think we have any access. I queried
this with Ebsco once, who wondered if we'd had a trial to something (a
sensible explanation), but we hadn't to the products in question. I
suppose there's really a whole other issue here of getting access to
things we should be paying for but haven't, but I did wonder if anyone
else had found this, and if so, do you do anything with the information?
Could it inform future decisions?

Like I said, a strange one, but all thoughts greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

Best wishes,

Sarah



Sarah Taylor
Electronic Resources Librarian
Library
University of Bolton
Deane Road
Bolton
BL3 5AB

01204 903099
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