[The original posting followed by the responses.]
From: Marlene Manoff <mmanoff_at_MIT.EDU>
Subject: vendor-provided usage data
Is anyone systematically collecting vendor-provided usage data for
electronic journals and databases and aggregating it into a spread
sheet or database? The MIT Libraries are putting together a project
and we'd like to hear from anyone who is doing this. Thanks,
p.s. We have seen the piece by Joanna Duy and Liwen Vaughan about NCSU
and the problems with vendor-provided statistics.
Marlene Manoff
MIT Libraries
617 2539354
==1==
From: William Wheeler <William_Wheeler_at_ncsu.edu>
recommend you also talk with Kim Parker et al at Yale
(kimberly.parker_at_yale.edu)
will wheeler, NCSU
==2==
From:
"Guilfoyle, Marvin" <mg29_at_evansville.edu>
I have been collecting vendor-provided usage data for some
time. The data are always a mixture of apples and bananas,
and one is never sure that a "search" in one vendor's data
equals a "search" in another's. Moreover, I'm never sure
that counting "searches" is what I should be doing; almost
all vendors do count "searches," however, and so I can delude
myself into thinking that I am comparing the same type of
numbers. Actually, we long ago decided that precise comparisons
were really impossible; whatever data we get only shows that
a database is being used--with some obviously being used more
than others. If an institution's databases do not greatly
overlap in content or several in the same subject area are
necessary for educational purposes, the ambiguity is
irritating but tolerable. However, only the grossest
differences allow one to use the data to actually compare
database utility between two similar products.
The amount of time and effort required for extracting this
data from multiple vendors for multiple databases is an
aspect that I don't recall having seen discussed. Vendors
supply data with varying forms of access. They may--
* periodically send you a pre-packaged report which may not
satisfy either a data type or a time-frame you need
* send you a notice but then you have to must visit a
website for which you are already authenticated or (often)
you must enter passwords
* allow you to visit a website and extract the data at
will--some for vendor-specified time periods and some
which you may specify the dates
And then there are the few who explicitly say that the
information is proprietary data and you are not
authorized to have access to it-even though you are
paying for it.
The variety of data delivery methods means that one
spends an inordinate amount time extracting information
which is, at best, of suspect comparability. We have
about seventy databases (from a lesser number of vendors),
and I can't imagine the effort involved in duplicating
the process at a large institution.
Marvin Guilfoyle
Acquisitions & Collection Development Librarian
University of Evansville Libraries
1800 Lincoln Avenue
Evansville, IN 47722
(812) 479-2247
mg29_at_evansville.edu
==3==
From: Carole Pilkinton <Carole.J.Pilkinton.10_at_nd.edu>
Marlene,
We are maintaining a large quantity of vendor supplied
stats in spreadsheets and saving as HTML for use by
collection librarians. We have been thinking about whether
to move these into a database instead, and would be
interested in sharing perspectives with others. It represents
a large time commitment, and we would like to make it as
useful and meaningful as possible.
Carole Pilkinton
Received on Wed Apr 30 2003 - 02:37:49 EDT