E-books Usage Statistics -- UNC Chapel Hill Perspectives
UNC reviews and analyzes e-books usage statistics only when doing so
makes a difference in terms of affecting collections decisions. Such
occurs in four instances: informing librarian title-by-title
selections; continuing subscriptions to leased e-books collections;
providing indications of need and value for potentially purchasing
on-going e-books packages; and (when the frontlist is owned) assessing
the potential utility of acquiring a corresponding e-books archive.
When looking at a collection, package, or archive of e-books, UNC
considers three elements: aggregate usage; cost-per-use; and
distribution of use. While the first two metrics are obvious and
mentioned often, the third component is not only critical but also can
be more fundamental to assessing value/utility. This last factor may
even trump high aggregate usage and low title cost-per-use!
Let me provide an instance of the critical importance of distribution of
use, using the example of when UNC cancelled its subscription to a major
collection of leased e-books despite an aggregate usage of >1.2M pages
viewed annually. When we examined distribution, only 20% of the 70,030
e-books then in this collection registered usage. Further analysis
revealed only 9% had more than 1 use and only 4% more than 3 uses.
Finally, only 5% of these leased e-books registered more than 100 pages
viewed---and they accounted for 81% of all pages viewed. On the basis
of this use distribution UNC concluded that it was more cost effective
the buy the relatively few intensely used titles and cancel the leased
e-books subscription.
Luke Swindler
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Luke Swindler Collections Management Officer
Davis Library CB #3918 luke_swindler_at_unc.edu
<mailto:luke_swindler_at_unc.edu>
University of North Carolina TEL (919-962-1095)
Chapel Hill, NC 27514 USA FAX (919-962-4450)
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"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most
intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change." Charles Darwin
Received on Tue Jun 24 2014 - 03:11:26 EDT