From: Frederick Friend <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:54:46 +0100
I agree with Joan Stein's review of the work that has been carried out
over many years. We have learned a great deal about both usage and
value, and I found the ACRL report particularly valuable in directing
attention to institutional definitions of what constitutes value. It
is in the institutional context that usage statistics can be of value,
and if there is an answer to Ann's question it has to be reached
institution by institution, defining the factors which apply in each
institution on issues such as proportion of current and past
acquisitions which are electronic or paper. The risk of inaccuracy
comes when usage statistics are cumulated, e.g. to say that "US
libraries are now gaining greater value from their electronic
resources than from their paper resources", because value cannot be
cumulated in the same way as usage statistics. Inaccuracy also creeps
in when financial information is combined with usage statistics and
treated as an indication of value. A statement such as "US libraries
are only paying x cents for each item downloaded" is meaningless as a
measure of value in isolation from the institutional and user
environments which give content its value. An interesting discussion!
Fred Friend
Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL
-----Original Message-----
From: Joan Stein <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:40:51 -0400
Subject: Re: E-resources usage statistics: up, down, or steady?
There is a great deal of research being done by the assessment
community in the United States, the
UK, and Australia (probably other countries as well that I'm not
familiar with) on the value of
e-resources, particularly e-journals at this stage but the research on
the value of e-books is beginning.
There has been a thin stream of such research for a few decades, much
of it done by Carol Tenopir and
Don King, but research activity has moved into high gear on this topic
over the past three or four years
for a variety of reasons, including the Value of Academic Libraries
Report commissioned by ACRL and
researched & written by Megan Oakleaf and the IMLS grant received by
several institutions to study
library value, including the value of e-resources. The research in UK
and Australian has been driven
by their own national reasons. I'd recommend taking a look at the
website for the IMLS-funded project:
http://libvalue.cci.utk.edu/biblio
which has an extensive bibliographic database of articles on a variety
of aspects of library value, including
e-resoures. JISC in the UK has also funded research in this area.
In general, the research is less about the number of uses and more
about the impact of the usage on the
user. Do e-resources make faculty, for example, more efficient
researchers & teachers? Do they save them
time (that can then be directed towards other aspects of their
responsibilities as researchers and teachers?),
etc. Impact, especially when/if it aligns with institutional goals
and priorities, is a more significant measure
than number of uses. A relatively new study reports also on the
number of e-articles researchers read on
average per year, along with other elements related to the value of
e-journals - the title is "Scholarly Reading
and the Value of Library Resources: A Survey". Information and links
to presentations and publications
about the study can be found here:
http://libvalue.cci.utk.edu/JISC
Research in this area from public libraries and special libraries goes
back further than that for academic
libraries and is not difficult to unearth via Google.
Regards,
Joan
Joan Stein
Head, Access Services
Carnegie Mellon University Libraries
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