Using Google to drive library usage

1. Using Google to drive library usage Shaun Hobbs, Global Director, Content Development David Smith, Business Innovations Manager

2. Introduction • Everyone uses Google – even when trained not to • We have to live with this reality • CABI exposed 500,000 abstracts to Google • Google indexed them and made them available through both the Google and Google Scholar search engines • When found by a Google user, they are brought to a specific CABI page to view just that abstract - for free • Associated abstract with other information • Started at beginning of 2007

5. Preliminary analysis June 2007 • 80000 Total visits Jan-June • 5800 Total unique domains in this period • 12000 Total acad. visits in this period • 1200 Total acad. domains in this period • 10-15% of visits were from the academic market

6. Top 10 .edu visitors • Michigan State • University of Florida • UC Davis • Cornell • Texas A&M • Oxford • U Minnesota • NC State • U Georgia • Iowa State

7. Subject areas viewed

8. Top 10 subject areas viewed • Soils and Fertilisers • Horticulture • Leisure Tourism • Socio-Economics • Forestry • Rural Development • Plant Breeding • Veterinary • Crop Physiology • Hygiene and Communicable Diseases

9. Some site changes and we register with Google (30+K visits per day!) Google changes their search algorithm (8K visits per day) Page Improvements (17K visits per day) Server Improvements (10K visits per day)

10. Who came in 2007 • 2 million total visits • Around 200k from academic market • All CABI Member Countries visited • 56 African countries visited • Top 10 • USA - 410k • India – 245k • UK – 200k • Canada – 88k • Australia – 80k • Germany – 46k • China – 38k • Brazil – 38k • Thailand – 38k • Philippines – 46k

11. How people use information • Simple visit • Ask for more information about CABI • If recognised, link through to more information in library holdings • Click on adsense • Bookmarked it for future use or other people’s use • Linked to it from Wikipedia

12. Google usage – a threat to subs? Vast majority of visitors just looking at a single page Usage nothing like in-depth analysis using full database access Cannot easily get access to further abstracts

13. Controlling the Subscription risk opportunity • Look at the opportunity to increase usage of subscriptions • Emphasise the difference between searching a specific dataset (CAB Abstracts) and a generalised one (Google) • Control what content we offer up and when • Control access to multiple Google records if needed

14. Taking the user to the CAB Abstracts subscription their institution has PAID for… Drive New Subscriptions & retain Existing Subscriptions Branded Landing Page for IP recognised subscribers (ALL subscriber librarians to be invited to supply data)

15. What this experiment has shown us • A wide variety of information across the database is viewed • Our information is of interest to a wide market, many new users want to know more about us • Even our current market can find information easily through this route • It can be used as a marketing tool for our, or your, purposes • CABI needs to be able to respond to large numbers of visitors • Working with Google is not always easy • It should not be seen as a threat to subscription business

16. Next steps • Work with libraries to enable the link through to their subscriptions – create specific landing page • Improve responsiveness to new enquiries • Review current and possible products • Increase amount of material available • Look at the best use of the information now available • Invest in the subscription business - create new CAB Direct search engine

17. Working to expose library assets • Let us work with you to improve access to your CABI holdings • For more information please email: smithd@cabi.org