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The ARL E-Metrics Project Measures for Electronic Resources

The ARL E-Metrics Project Measures for Electronic Resources. ACRL/NEC Information Technology Interest Group May 17, 2002 Brinley Franklin Director, University of Connecticut Libraries. In the Beginning.

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The ARL E-Metrics Project Measures for Electronic Resources

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  1. The ARL E-Metrics ProjectMeasures for Electronic Resources ACRL/NEC Information Technology Interest Group May 17, 2002 Brinley Franklin Director, University of Connecticut Libraries

  2. In the Beginning... • ARL Libraries all of a sudden found themselves spending more than $100 annually on electronic services and wanted to know who was using them, if the expenditures were justified by use statistics, and what was the value derived from our investment in electronic resources • In January 1999, the ARL Statistics and Measurement and Leadership Committees held a retreat to consider “new measures” for research libraries that were output, not input related • Five “New Measures” projects evolved from that retreat: (1) Learning and Research Outcomes (2) Measurement of Service Quality (LibQual+) (3) Cost Studies (4) Interlibrary Loan/Document Delivery and (5) Measures for Networked Statistics and Electronic Resources (E-Metrics)

  3. The E-Metrics Project is Born • Representatives from 36 ARL Libraries attended a retreat in February 2000. • Rush Miller (Pittsburgh) and Sherrie Schmidt (Arizona State) agreed to serve as project co-chairs • Dr. Charles McClure, Francis Eppes Professor and Director of the Information Management Use and Policy Institute at Florida State University’s School of Information Studies was hired as project consultant • Four areas were included in the project scope: (1) Study of users and uses (2) Cost and benefit analyses (3) Study of staff impact and needs and (4) Engaging information providers in a discussion of their usage data provided to libraries

  4. Alberta Arizona State Auburn Chicago Connecticut Cornell Illinois-Chicago Manitoba Maryland Massachusetts Nebraska Notre Dame Pennsylvania Penn State Pittsburgh Purdue Southern California Texas A&M Virginia Tech Western Ontario Wisconsin Yale Library of Congress New York Public Library 24 Participating ARL Libraries

  5. Measuring Electronic Usage - Some Challenges • Lack of a clear and consistent definition of data elements • Vendors supply the data • Vendors “count” different things different ways • Consortium membership can skew individual library usage totals • Data elements are shifting as services evolve • Many libraries are not staffed to coordinate various data provided

  6. The E-Metrics Project (May 2000 - December 2001) • Phase One Report (delivered in November 2000) inventoried the state of the art within participating ARL libraries for measuring electronic information resources and services using questionnaires and site visits. A Working Group on Database Vendor Statistics was organized and met with 11 major vendors: Academic Press/Ideal netLibrary Elsevier/Science Direct SilverPlatter Lexis-Nexis EBSCO Ovid JSTOR Bell & Howell OCLC/FirstSearch Gale Group

  7. The E-Metrics Project (May 2000 - December 2001) • Phase Two - Defining and Testing Data Elements • Other similar projects monitored included: • European Commission Equinox Project • Publishing and Library Solutions Committee (PALS) Working Group on Online Vendor Usage Statistics (UK) • ICOLC Guidelines for Statistical Measures of Usage of Web-based Indexed, Abstracted, and Full-Text Resources • National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) project to standardize online database usage statistics • Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) project to develop national network online statistics for public libraries • Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) report by Judy Luther on Network Statistics • NISO Forum on Performance Measures and Statistics

  8. The E-Metrics Project (May 2000 - December 2001) • Phase Two - Defining and Testing Data Elements • 18 Measures were field tested in three categories: • (1) information content - including the number of full-text journals or reference sources to which a library subscribes, virtual “visits” to the library’s electronic resources and the percentage of monographs represented by electronic books • (2) information services - including measuring the usage of library digital collections and the percentage of reference and other transactions that are digitally based • (3) technical infrastructure - cost of digital collections along with support costs, expenditures for electronic journals, etc.

  9. E-Metrics Recommended Statistics Patron Accessible Electronic Resources • R1 Number of electronic full-text journals • R2 Number of electronic reference sources • R3 Number of electronic books Use of Networked Resources and Services • U1 Number of electronic reference transactions • U2 Number of logins (sessions) to electronic databases • U3 Number of queries (searches) in electronic databases • U4 Items requested in electronic databases • U5 Virtual visits to library’s website and catalog

  10. E-Metrics Recommended Statistics (continued) Expenditures for Networked Resources and Related Infrastructure • C1 Cost of electronic full-text journals • C2 Cost of electronic reference sources • C3 Cost of electronic books • C4 Library expenditures for bibliographic utilities, networks, and consortia • C5 External expenditures for bibliographic utilities, networks, and consortia Library Digitization Activities • D1 Size of library digital collection • D2 Use of library digital collection • D3 Cost of digital collection construction and management

  11. The E-Metrics Project (May 2000 - December 2001) • Phase Two Final Report and a Proposal for Phase Three- Measuring Outcomes was delivered to ARL in December 2001 and presented at ALA-Midwinter in January, 2002 • ARL will not be engaging the Information Management Use and Policy Institute at the Florida State University School of Information Studies to continue work on Phase Three,

  12. Post Mortem - What’s Next for E-Metrics? • Interested ARL libraries will begin collecting the proposed data and statistics in FY 2003. The 24 E-Metrics Libraries that funded the original project participate at no additional cost - new participants will be asked to contribute $2000. Gordon Fretwell, University of Massachusetts, and former editor of ARL Statistics, will support this data collecting effort. • We hope that by acting in concert we will exert pressure on publishers to be responsive to our requests for more uniform and consistent usage data. • We also hope that libraries will continue to shift their focus from measuring inputs and traditional services to measuring all library services, including electronic services, and to measuring outputs and outcomes.

  13. ARL E-Metrics Project Homepage http://www.arl.org/stats/newmeas/emetrics/index.html

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