Qualitative & Quantitative Methods in Electronic Collection Management

4th International Conference on Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries Limerick, Ireland 24 May 2012 Selena Killick Library Quality Officer

Cranfield University

• The UK's only wholly postgraduate university focused

on science, technology, engineering and

management

• One of the UK's top five research intensive

universities

• Annual turnover £150m

• 40% of our students study whilst in employment

• We deliver the UK Ministry of Defence's largest

educational contract

Expenditure on Journals

2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10

Journal Spend

Information Expenditure by Format 2010-11

Books 4%

eBooks 4%

Journals 68%

Databases 24%

Information Expenditure by Format 2010-11

Books 4%

eBooks 4%

Journals 31%

Big Deals 37%

Databases 24%

Evaluating the Big Deals: Requirements

• Systematic

• Sustainable

• Internal benchmarking

• Elevator pitch

• So what?

• Enable informed decision making

• Demonstrate smart procurement

New Approach

Quantitative: • Size

• Usage

• Coverage

• Value for Money

Qualitative: • Academic Liaison

• REF Preferred

• Reading Lists Review

CONYERS, A., 2007. What do publisher usage statistics tell us? The Analysing Publisher Deal project from

Evidence Base. SCONUL Focus, no.40, pp.72-76, Available at:

http://www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/newsletter/40/25.pdf.

Quantitative Metrics Including:

• Average number of downloads per title

• % of titles with zero downloads

• Average cost per title

• Usage of core titles

• Cost per full-text download

• Overall

• For each core title

• Three-year trends for most popular titles

• Number of core titles in Top 30 most popular titles

Subscribed Titles

• For each core title the cost, downloads, and cost-per-

download categorised: • Zero

• Low

• Medium

• High

• Cancel?

Considerations

• When to measure from/to? • calendar, financial/academic, or contract year?

• Which titles make up our core collection?

• Do we have access to all of the ‘zero use’ titles?

• What constitutes Low/Medium/High?

• What about the aggregator usage statistics?

• Do we trust the usage statistics?

• What is the size of the target population?

Excel Template

• Two main data sources:

• COUNTER JR1

• Subscription agent financial report

• Automated as much as possible

• Match formulas working with ISSNs to link title price to

usage/holdings

• All calculations are completed automatically when the

data sources are added

• Results fitted onto a one-page printout

Quantitative Reporting

• Systematic

• Sustainable

• Internal benchmarking

• Elevator pitch

• So what?

• Enable informed decision making

• Demonstrate smart procurement

Qualitative Measures: Academic Liaison

• Who’s using it?

• Why?

• How?

• Who’s recommending it?

• How valuable is it?

• What will be the impact if we cancel?

• Teaching?

• Research?

REF Preferred Journals

• Each academic school compiled a list of journals

seen as being REF Critical

• Lists combined & analysed by Library staff

• Number of overlapping titles

• Number & cost of titles we do not hold in our

collection

• Usage of titles we do hold in our collection

Reading List Review

Analysis of course reading lists:

• What are our academic recommending?

• Where is it published?

• How often is it recommended?

Quantitative & Qualitative Reporting

• Systematic

• Sustainable

• Internal benchmarking

• Elevator pitch

• So what?

• Enable informed decision making

• Demonstrate smart procurement

Using the results. What they can do:

• Both qualitative and quantitative measures tell the

story of the resource

• Aid decision making

• Justify procurement

• Safeguard budgets…?

What they can’t do:

Closing thoughts

• Is it worth investing in this?

• Qualitative & Quantitative

• Danger of relying on cost-per-download

Looking Ahead

• Journal Usage Statistics Portal

• New reports = new internal processes

• Review of all budgets

• All Resources

• Systems

• Staff

• Services

• Demonstrating Value and Impact

• Resources

• Services

References

• CONYERS, A., 2010. Usage Statistics and Online Behaviour (2). In: G.

STONE, R. ANDERSON and J. FEINSTEIN, eds, The E-Resources

Management Handbook – UKSG. Burford: UKSG. Available at:

http://uksg.metapress.com/link.asp?id=084t98646x2rn62k

• CONYERS, A., 2007. What do publisher usage statistics tell us? The

Analysing Publisher Deal project from Evidence Base. SCONUL Focus,

no.40, pp.72-76, Available at:

http://www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/newsletter/40/25.pdf.

• Lib-Stats discussion list and archive: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/LIB-

STATS

• TAYLOR-ROE, J. and SPENCER, C., 2005. A librarian's view of usage

metrics: through a glass darkly? Serials: The Journal for the Serials

Community, 18(2), pp. 124-131.

• Joint Usage Statistics Portal (JUSP): http://jusp.mimas.ac.uk/

Thank You

Selena Killick Cranfield University s.a.killick@cranfield.ac.uk Tel: 01793 785561