From: Xiaotian Chen <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 14:24:16 -0600

It seems that ARL and other organizations of our profession still live
in the 1990s.  In the age of PubMed and Google Schoar, I have always
found stats like # of databases and # of searches meaningless.  Do we
know the # of searches on PubMed and Google Scholar?  If not, what is
point of counting the # of searches on MEDLINE?

Federated searches and discovery tools have made # of searches more
meaningless.  ARL, ACRL, etc should just get over it.

I thought the most meaningful stats are COUNTER Journal Report 1 (R3)
and my proxy server stats.

Xiaotian Chen
Electronic Services Librarian
Bradley University
Peoria, Illinois
http://hilltop.bradley.edu/~chen/


On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:17 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: "Hamaker, Charles" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:23:34 +0000
>
> I’m in a bit of a quandary about what to do about search statistics
> from Discovery services.
>
> I can’t find anywhere a definition that includes them, yet when I look
> at some of what we are receiving from our vendors, I can’t EXCLUDE
> them from the stats  to determine individual database usage either.
>
> What is being requested.. (these originally were in the ARL supplemental stats)
>
> Number of successful full-text article requests (journals)
>
> Number of regular searches (databases)
>
> Number of federated searches (databases)
>
> When you look at the ARL supplemental definitions, it says:
>
> “Questions 18-20.  Use of Electronic Resources.  Items reported should
> follow definitions as defined in  the COUNTER Code of Practice
> (www.projectcounter.org). In a footnote, please include the types of
> resources for which you are reporting data.  It is recommend that ONLY
> data that follow the COUNTER definitions be reported. Any exceptions
> should be documented in a footnote.”
>
> And when you go to the COUNTER pages, the list of “known” federated
> search engines while quite lengthy does not include the discovery
> services.
>
> Any thoughts welcome.
>
> Chuck
>
> Charles Hamaker M.L.S | Associate University Librarian Collection
> Development and Electronic Resources
> UNC Charlotte | J. Murrey Atkins Library
> 9201 University City Blvd. | Charlotte, NC 28223
> [log in to unmask] | http://library.uncc.edu/