Abstract
Usus: a collaborative initiative between publishers and librarians to improve electronic resource usage statistics
Highlights
The key to scaling up the possibility for shared usage statistics has long been recognized to be standards
Every library would like the magic solution that effortlessly pulls in usage, processes it efficiently and accurately, and provides it via an analytics dashboard that is manipulated to answer the question at hand
Some consortia go to great lengths to provide usage statistics for their member libraries, and there is a new initiative within the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) to partner together to build a commonly shared and supported operational capability for the collection, storage, formatting and dissemination of usage data by consortia
Summary
It is hard to overstate the importance of electronic resource usage statistics to the information ecosystem. Libraries want to know if their patrons are using the resources, and publishers and vendors want to be able to show the value of the resources they provide. It is rarely the only piece of information that is considered, resource renewals and related purchases often rely heavily on usage statistics, and the most interesting information can often be found in the details. What titles from a package are being used or not used? How has usage for this product changed over time? How did users get to the resource in the first place? Historically, such a small amount of information has been available to track physical format usage – primarily data about circulation and reshelving – that information providers have become happily greedy for all of the potential ways they can better understand what their users want and need (while still maintaining user privacy) and remain useful and relevant in the incredibly competitive information environment we live in today
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