I began compiling and comparing my institution's usage statistics in late 2010. Gathering data going back to 2007, we were shocked to find that while the number, quality, and cost of our electronic offerings was going up, the usage peaked in 2008 and was trending down. Most shocking, our full-text journal article downloads were down nearly 46% in 2010 compared to 2008! This was despite the fact that we implemented Summon in early 2010, which we were sure would have boosted discoverability. We brainstormed dozens of reasons that could be contributing factors, but basically remained stumped and crestfallen. We began reading all the latest studies about patrons' attitudes and behaviors from the viewpoint of our findings and were somewhat relieved to find it wasn't just us. We put together a presentation for our library management team with our findings, mostly derived from the following sources, which I would highly recommend.
"Truth Be Told: How College Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age<http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_Fall2010_Survey_FullReport1.pdf>," Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, Project Information Literacy Progress Report, University of Washington's Information School, November 1, 2010.
"Finding Context: What Today's College Student Say about Conducting Research in the Digital Age<http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_ProgressReport_2_2009.pdf>," Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, Project Information Literacy Progress Report, University of Washington's Information School, February 4, 2009.
"Lessons Learned: How College Students Seek Information in the Digital Age<http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_Fall2009_finalv_YR1_12_2009v2.pdf>," Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, Project Information Literacy First Year Report with Student Survey Findings, University of Washington's Information School, December 1, 2009.
"The ECAR National Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology<http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS1103/ERS1103W.pdf>," Eden Dahlstrom, Tom de Boor, Peter Grunwald, and Martha Vockley, with a foreword by Diana Oblinger, EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, October, 2011.
"Perceptions of Libraries, 2010: Context and Community<http://www.oclc.org/reports/2010perceptions.htm>," OCLC, 2011.
"Engaging Net Gen Students in Virtual Reference: Reinventing Services to meet their Information Behaviors and Communication Preferences<http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/conferences/confsandpreconfs/national/seattle/papers/10.pdf>," Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Marie L. Radford, Jocelyn DeAngelis Williams, in Mueller, D.M. (Eds), Pushing the Edge: Explore, Extend, Engage: Proceedings of the Fourteenth National Conference of the Association of College and Research Libraries, Association of College & Research Libraries, Chicago, IL, pp.10-27, 2009.
"If It Is Too Inconvenient, I'm Not Going After It: Convenience as a Critical Factor in Information-seeking Behaviors<http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2011/connaway-lisr.pdf>," Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Timothy J. Dickey, and Marie L. Radford, OCLC pre-print, Library and Information Science Research,33: 179-190, 2011.
"MINES for libraries: Measuring the Impact of Networked Electronic Services and the Ontario Council of University Libraries' Scholars Portal<http://www.libqual.org/documents/LibQual/publications/MINES_OCUL2011.pdf>," Association of Research Libraries, 2011.
"Faculty Survey 2009: Key Strategic Insights for Libraries, Publishers, and Societies<http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/faculty-surveys-2000-2009/Faculty%20Study%202009.pdf>," Roger C. Schonfeld and Ross Housewright, Itaka S+R, April 7, 2010.
I won't tell you what our conclusions (i.e., best guesses) are because they are so tightly integrated with our individual institution's experiences, but mostly we realize that students are going elsewhere for their information and we need to do a better job of giving them compelling reasons to use library resources.
We remain positive in that we know we have a quality selection of resources at our disposal that are still heavily used, even if they are used less than they were two years ago. Our library management team also realizes that there seems to be a higher standard when it comes to usage for electronic resources when compared to print, and that the cost-per-use on most of our resources remains reasonable. The heart of the matter, though, is we need to serve the students where they are, and our students live online. Continuing to make this content available and discoverable to them whenever, wherever, and however they want, is a priority for us.
Kari Petryszyn, Electronic Resources Management Specialist
University of Saint Thomas
2115 Summit Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55105
email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by UKSG - Connecting the Information Community [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Danny Millum
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 7:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [lis-e-resources] Decreasing usage statistics
Last year our web stats all fell, following the Google change in March. They began to pick up again in the autumn though, and are now above where they were before...so it might be worth a more detailed breakdown to see whether the latest trends are more promising...
Danny Millum
Deputy Editor, Reviews in History / Editorial Assistant (Web) Institute of Historical Research University of London Senate House Malet Street LONDON WC1E 7HU
t: +44 (0)20 7862 8812
f: +44 (0)20 7862 8754
e: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Web: www.history.ac.uk<http://www.history.ac.uk>
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by UKSG - Connecting the Information Community [mailto:[log in to unmask]]<mailto:[mailto:[log in to unmask]]> On Behalf Of Hamaker, Charles
Sent: 17 April 2012 13:25
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [lis-e-resources] Decreasing usage statistics
Two cents worth of reaction.
We noticed this last year in December as we did fiscal year review of stats, and I'm wondering if it's different depending on the type of resource. I hope I'm not revealing proprietary information, but one of our primary publishers wrote in December explaining the drop we noticed:
"...we have discovered that Google changed their search algorithm in March this year (2011) and this coincides with the decline in referrals... So it looks like this is the most likely explanation for the drop in usage."
What I haven't done is looked at aggregator stats compared to primary publisher stats, to see if they are different in decline, since the secondary aggregators databases aren't normally indexed by Google anyway. Any primary publishers on the list with similar knowledge or experience, it would be very helpful to know about, because the overall drop is pretty striking, and needs an explanation for justifying continuing funding support for these resources.
Chuck Hamaker
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by UKSG - Connecting the Information Community [mailto:[log in to unmask]]<mailto:[mailto:[log in to unmask]]> On Behalf Of Jenny Lang
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 7:54 AM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [lis-e-resources] Decreasing usage statistics
Hello Sarah
Bit of a mixed picture, but overall the trend is not encouraging. I'd be interested to hear any results from your enquiry, and if there are people who finding their usage levels rising, how do they do it?
Best wishes
Jenny
Jenny Lang
Head Librarian
Healthcare Library
Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust
Salisbury
Wiltshire
SP2 8BJ
01722 336262 ext 4469
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Access the library website at www.library.salisbury.nhs.uk<http://www.library.salisbury.nhs.uk>
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by UKSG - Connecting the Information Community [mailto:[log in to unmask]]<mailto:[mailto:[log in to unmask]]> On Behalf Of Taylor, Sarah
Sent: 17 April 2012 12:47
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [lis-e-resources] Decreasing usage statistics
Hi all,
Apologies for this ramble.
I'm currently looking in detail at usage of electronic resources and have discovered that across the board, usage is down comparing 2010 to
2011 for example. I'm doing this so I can demonstrate to folk high up in the university that our electronic resources are good value for money.
Not all of our resources are down, but looking at the overall picture, it's really quite bleak. Some are massively down. I was hoping that the results of my little exercise would show that usage is rising, but this appears not to be the case! Therefore, the positive report I was planning on writing is looking at little unlikely...
Has anyone else noticed a trend in usage statistics going down? If you have, have you managed to remain positive about the use of your electronic collections while still managing to demonstrate value for money? We don't have any sort of resource discovery product here, if that makes a difference (and I suspect it might).
All insights greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
Best wishes,
Sarah
Sarah Taylor
Electronic Resources Librarian
The Peter Marsh Library
University of Bolton
Deane Road
Bolton
BL3 5AB
01204 903099
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Please note that my normal working days are Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays
lis-e-resources is a UKSG list - http://www.uksg.org/serials UKSG groups also available on Facebook and LinkedIn
lis-e-resources is a UKSG list - http://www.uksg.org/serials UKSG groups also available on Facebook and LinkedIn
lis-e-resources is a UKSG list - http://www.uksg.org/serials UKSG groups also available on Facebook and LinkedIn
lis-e-resources is a UKSG list - http://www.uksg.org/serials UKSG groups also available on Facebook and LinkedIn
lis-e-resources is a UKSG list - http://www.uksg.org/serials
UKSG groups also available on Facebook and LinkedIn
