Hi Eric,
For our use case, we usually focus on overall usage metrics such as
downloads and views. In some cases, vendors or publishers also highlight
turnaways and sometimes used to suggest upgrading to a larger package.
Generally, we review usage trends over time and occasionally compare them
with the previous years to get a broader sense of changes in usage
patterns. However, these numbers alone are not the sole deciding factor
when determining whether to continue or cancel a subscription.
We recently started using EBSCO Panorama, which has been helpful in
aggregating usage data across multiple databases into a single dashboard.
This has made it much easier to get a consolidated view and better
understand the overall usage landscape.
Best regards,
Hussam
On Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 2:53 AM Eric Lease Morgan <
00000107b9c961ae-dmarc-request_at_lists.clir.org> wrote:
>
> How is your library collecting COUNTER reports and making decisions
> against them?
>
> As you probably know, COUNTER is a standard for formatting the usage
> statistics from vendors and publishers. The reports come in two formats:
> delimited and JSON. There seem to be about two dozen standardized reports,
> and the easiest ones to get your brain around are the book and journal
> reports. These reports list things like what book was viewed (or
> downloaded) in a given time frame, and then lists the total number of
> views/downloads. I know. The reports are much more nuanced than that. Such
> is only an example.
>
> For the gentlest introduction, see "Basics and Resources: COUNTER" [1] An
> example COUNTER report ought to be attached, and it addresses the question,
> "How many times was Access Engineering accessed in the given year?"
>
> Given the myriad of COUNTER reports, there ought to be more than a myriad
> of ways to interpret them. This community -- being a set people who eat
> data for lunch -- probably have experience getting and interpreting COUNTER
> data. Thus, I'm curious. How do y'all get, interpret, and use COUNTER data?
>
> [1] https://libtechlaunchpad.com/basics-and-resources/counter/
>
> --
> Eric Morgan <emorgan_at_nd.edu>
>
>
Received on Fri Mar 13 2026 - 19:52:36 EDT