I’m back from my first Charleston conference and I want to share what I found out at some of the sessions I attended.

Using Usage Data to Support Collection Management Decisions During An Economic Slowdown

Speakers: Gayle Baker – Faculty, The University of Tennessee Library; Virginia R. Kinman – Electronic Resources Librarian, Longwood University

This main thrust of this session was that budgets are tight and usage data, with value added from other sources, can be a valuable tool in making collection management decisions.  The University of Tennessee combines data from COUNTER and SFX to provide a look at not only what journals are being used, but how they are being used.

Longwood University (Virginia), gathers data from e-resources and from other library sources (ILL data, gate counts, Web traffic, etc.).  Three large issues (measurement, impact, and analysis) were identified. Examples of measurement issues are interface variations, data sources and user behavior.

Vendor Usage Reports: Are we all on the same page now?

Speakers: Oliver Pesch - Chief Strategist of E-Resources, EBSCO Industries Inc.; Peter Shepherd – Director, COUNTER; Adam Chandler – Information Technology Librarian, Cornell University; Patricia Brennan - Product Manager, Thomson Reuters.

 

The participants in this session discussed COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources), which sets standards for usage reports, and SUSHI (Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative) which is the standardized process for harvesting these statistics.

What characteristics do usage statistics have?  They should enlighten us, and they should be practical and reliable.  But, they are only part of the story and must be used in context.

COUNTER Codes of Practice

·         Release 3 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for Journals and Databases (Published August 2008)

·         Release 2 of the COUNTER code of Practice for Journals and Databases (Published April 2005)

·         Release 1 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for Books and Reference Works (Published March 2006)

To be COUNTER compliant, vendor statistics must be auditable.

SUSHI is an automated request and response model for the harvesting of electronic resource usage data using the web.  It is intended to replace the user-mediated collection of usage data reports.  It is used to produce Excel or XML reports. 

It should harvest local metrics (Local library or consortia, at the journal, collection, and publisher level.)  It is employed to derive statistics to calculate cost effectiveness and assess the value of “big deals.”  Global metrics can be harvested as well.  These may include: authors, funding agencies, and publishers).

Usage statistics should replace impact factors, which can distort publishing, which are overused and of value mostly to researchers rather than journal users.

Usage data should be easy to understand and reflect value to all users.

ONIX-PL: Linking Electronic Resources and their Licensing Terms

Speakers: Friedemann Weigel (Moderator) – Managing Partner, Director IT, Harrassowitz; Bob Boissy - Manager, Agent Relations, Springer;  Rick Burke – Executive Director of SCELC, the Statewide Californian Electronic Library Consortium;  Brian Green – Executive Director, EDItEUR.

 

ONIX for Publications Licenses (ONIX-PL) is an XML format designed to handle the licenses under which libraries and other institutions use electronic resources. It builds on the  work of the Digital Libraries Federation’s Electronic Resource Management Initiative (ERMI) and the joint EDItEUR / NISO work on ONIX for Serials.

·         It is designed to allow libraries to:

·         express licenses in a machine-readable format,

·         load them into electronic resource management systems,

·         link them to digital resources, and

·         communicate key usage terms to users

 

Currently, Serials Solutions is the only ERM with a pilot project planned for ONIX-OL (late this year or early 2009), although other ERM vendors (EBSCO for example) are also interested in adding ONIX-PL functionality to their applications.

 

An ONIX-PL compliant license is easily expressed to end users.

 

Since we are a Serials Solutions library, I believe ONIX-PL merits further investigation.

 

We want more e-books! Lessons Learned from Seven Years of Embedding Electronic Books into a UK University Library Collection

Speakers: Kate Price – E-Strategy & Resources Manager, University of Surrey

 

The University of Surrey was an early adopter of e-books.  They began with reference titles, but rapidly moved into other areas.  In 2008 they added MyiLibrary to their holdings, which now encompass all levels and all subjects.

 

The biggest area of concern was the amount of staff time required for e-books – particularly in cataloging.  Early e-books acquired at Surrey had a high level of cataloging, but this has diminished over time.

 

Surrey also participated in a study of how e-books and their users.  Some interesting findings from the study: 

E-book users are more dependent on library resources than free resources (Google and other search engines)

E-book users are dissatisfied with the availability of print resources

Only 7% of e-book users print to read (in other words they do not read any of it online)

60% of e-book users screen read without printing.

Hello everyone,

I am back from the Charleston Conference and wanted to share with you some of my notes from the programs I attended. I found the sessions to be interesting and worth attending; they clearly demonstrated that the future of information production and delivery is electronic. Everybody agrees on that. Although progress is made, I can say that libraries, publishers and vendors still operate from different perspectives and there is a lot of work to be done toward fulfilling the information needs of users. In one session, for example, the vendor rep discussed how their goal is to deliver the info to users fast – and this is great; however, she failed to discuss what they are doing to secure the preservation of this information for future use. But in general, I enjoyed the conference very much and was glad to learn what our colleagues are doing to solve some of the problems we face here at our library.

So here it goes:

Migraine-free migration: Librarian and publisher perspectives on facilitating the transition from print to electronic formats for academic content (11/6/08)

Speakers: Jackie Zanghi-LaPlace, Director of electronic databases, IGI Global; Julia Gelfand ,Univ. of California Libraries; Selden Durgom,NC State Univ. Libraries.

This session focused on the current state of publications as libraries continue to acquire materials in print and online formats and publishers continue to produce print and online editions of publications. As libraries move toward a complete digital academic content, this session focused on steps that libraries and publishers could take to make the print to online transition a migraine-free one.
As libraries and publishers agree that users prefer online content over print, it is important that a transition to ER plan is in place to facilitate migration from print to online. As different institutions have different needs based on the clients they serve, it is important that each institution develops a plan that accordingly and strategically responds to the needs of its users. There is not one plan that works for all. It is important to have data and usage statistics to support your plan.

Additional issues to consider before transition:
Don’t make self hazardous decisions, i.e. switching to online format because of space shortage.
What are the needs of academic programs the library support?
What discipline areas can safely be moved into online only content?
What areas do we need to watch?
What is the cost of print vs. online ownership?
Consider archival records offered by publishers when dealing with embargoed publications.
If a decision is made to keep a copy of print, plan accordingly to store print in one location.
As vendors sell database packages, and not individual titles, let them know of libraries’ expectations.
Make sure that all content is included in online version of journals.
Let publishers know that perpetual access is important to libraries and it should be allowed for print and online subscriptions.
Consider the instances of titles dropped from databases and then added back in.
Know flexibility of license agreement with regard to info sharing, ILL, use for instruction, etc.
Consider existing business models and platforms used by publishers.

I thought this was a great session where problems were discussed from the libraries and publishers’ perspectives.

Opening the doors to collaborative collection development (11/6/08)

Speaker: Michael Arthur, Head of Acquisition & Collection Services, UCF.

This session discussed how Florida Universities responded to Ross Atkinson’s Six Key Challenges Facing Collection Development otherwise known as the Janus challenge.
Florida University Libraries started working on this initiative in February 2007, when state’s Collection Planning Committee (CPC) met to discuss various issues.

Although Florida Universities already have a history of resource sharing, including FCLA, which provides 185 shared databases and an average of 50% cost reduction on shared statewide licenses, there are several issues to be considered for future cooperation. These issues include: storage space, flat or declining budgets, demand for seamless borrowing and delivery of content, reduction in staffing, preservation of print materials, ownership rights to online content, the need to share expensive technology, collections that make libraries unique and a lot more.

CSUL created six task forces, which were asked to provide ideas of how to meet the six key challenges and recommend specific actions.

Recommendations include: convert to digital format to enhance access, move from singe institution vision to state wide vision, sharing of resources, protect materials and increase visibility of unique collections, establish a shared E-book collection, set benchmark for amount each institution will spent toward shared E-books, focus on buying perpetual rights for online content, and develop a shared reference collection.

With regard to archiving, the speaker discussed the shared storage facility at UF and the recommendations for selecting the best copy in the state. He noted that two copies of bound volumes for serials and one copy for monographs will be selected for storage. To preserve title count, which is important to libraries, ownership will remain for those institutions that owned copies of an item selected for storage, regardless of whose copy will physically be transferred there.

The Janus Working Group will meet in Gainesville on Nov 13^th to mesh final reports into a final document to be approved by CPS and then forwarded to CSUL for approval.

Achieving community goals in our decentralized environment (11/6/08)

Speaker: Roger Schonfeld , Manager of Research, Ithaka.

In this session, Schonfeld discussed the fundamental structure of the American academic community: decentralized and fairly competitive, and how it has been impacted by the technology development in a digital environment. In a digital environment, the community goals of higher education remain the same: improve access to higher education for learners, maximize impact of research output, and preserve information for future research and he introduced some practices that seem to work in a digital environment.

CourseWare, for example, is the perfect opportunity to distribute the information to learners in digital environment. But while our current online course dissemination is institutionalized, Schonfeld introduced a case from India, where institutions are using a centralized learning method and are sharing something like “The best of …” information through shared CourseWare. Through this method the best information becomes available to learners. However, the speaker noted, we must keep in mind that central funding is needed to accomplish this centralized learning method, something unfeasible in the U.S.

Digital environment has created the perfect opportunity to maximize access to information. While content is available for a low price or even free through open publishing platforms, we have to keep in mind what is important to our researchers. Faculty, for example, value information that is “widely read in their field” and don’t necessary care about what is available for free.

With respect to preservation, Schonfeld reminded us that similarly to the traditional purchase, local ownership and storage of a print collection, libraries should get involved in the economically sustainable digital preservation of digital content. And lastly he noted that we “hope” that a print collection is kept somewhere. How many copies should be preserved? It is up to institutions, which know the real value of their collections.

Plenary Session #1

Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008

— Pat Schroeder, AAP — spoke about the Google Book Search initiative: 7 mil. Books to be made available – the digitized books from the UMich, UWisconsin, Cal, and Stanford; the books are still in copyright but not commercially available (out of print); libraries will pay a fee to access the books and their patrons will have free access, although printing charges are being negotiated; the books will not include images or photos; Google has arranged to pay authors willing to allow access to their works a $60 fee and then they have a choice of either taking a percentage of sales, etc.

— Geoff Bilder, CrossRef — libraries must now service a “Virtual Research environment and manage institutional-born content and make it available to users.”