electronic collection management: how statistics can, and can't, help

Surviving the recession: maximising your valueASLIB Engineering & Technology GroupAerospace & Defence Librarians Group

Electronic Collection Management:How statistics can, and can’t, help.

John HarringtonHead of Information Services

Selena KillickLibrary Quality Officer

Introduction

• Institutional, financial and strategic context

• Previous methods used to review journals collections

• Role of qualitative and quantitative measures

• What these measures can and cannot tell us

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

Key Drivers

• Financial realities

• Demonstrating value for money

• Strategic alignment

• Research Excellence Framework (REF)

• Income

• ReputationMissioncritical

Expenditure on Journals

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

Journal Spend

Expenditure on Resources

8%

58%

4%

29%

0%

Cranfield UniversityInformation Provision Expenditure

by Format 2009-10

Books inc. special collections

Total Journals

e-Books

Other databases

Other digital documents

How do we demonstrate that the collection is meeting the needs of the University?

Previous Techniques Used:

Annual journals review using the follow data

• Circulation figures – issues and renewals

• “Sweep survey” to capture in-house use

• Journal contents page requests

• Download figures

• Journal prices v the cost of ILL requests

More recent focus on “cost per download”

New Approach

Quantitative:• Size

• Usage

• Coverage

• Value for Money

Qualitative:• Academic Liaison

• Reading Lists Review

• REF Preferred

Quantitative Reporting

Quantitative Reporting

• Systematic

• Sustainable

• Internal benchmarking

• Elevator pitch

• So what?

• Enable informed decision making

• Demonstrate smart procurement

Brought to you by the letters…

&

Our Approach

• What has everyone else done?

• Analysing Publisher Deals Project

• Storage centre

• Excel training

• Template design

Basic Metrics

• Number of titles within a package

• Total annual full-text downloads

• Cost:

• Core titles

• e-Access Fee

• Total costs

Value Metrics

• Average number of requests per title

• Average cost per title

• Total cost as % of information provision expenditure

• Cost per full-text download

• Average download per FTE student/staff/total

• Average cost per FTE student/staff/total

The Long Tail

Do

wn

loa

ds

Titles Titles Titles

Long Tail Short Tail No Tail

Subscribed Titles

• Reviewing performance of core collection

• REF Preferred?

• Popular?

• Three year trends in cost / downloads / CPD

• Cost / Downloads / CPD categorised:• Zero

• Low

• Medium

• High

• Cancel?

Popular Titles

• Which titles are the most popular?

• Top 30 titles in the package

• Three year trends in downloads

• REF Preferred?

• Subscribed title?

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?

How statistics can, and can’t, help.

Electronic Collection Management:

Qualitative Measures

Academic Liaison

• Who‟s using it?

• Why?

• How?

• How valuable is it?

• What will be the impact if we cancel?

• Teaching?

• Research?

Quantitative on the Qualitative:

Analysis on the five REF Preferred Recommended

Journals Lists:

• Overlapping titles

• Unsubscribed titles

• Financial shortfall

• Current recommended subscribed titles

• Usage data

Reading List Review

Qualitative analysis on course reading lists:

• What are our academic recommending?

• Where is it published?

• How often is it recommended?

• Are there alternatives?

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:

Conclusions

Closing thoughts

• Is it worth investing in this?

• Qualitative & Quantitative

• Danger of relying on cost-per-download

Looking Ahead

• Review of all budgets

• All Resources

• Systems

• Staff

• Services

• Demonstrating Value and Impact

• Resources

• Services

Thank You

Selena KillickCranfield Universitys.a.killick@cranfield.ac.ukTel: 01793 785561

John HarringtonCranfield Universityj.harrington@cranfield.ac.ukTel: 01234 754477