ONLINE JOURNAL USAGE STATISTICS FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA: What We Learned and What Surprised Us Lenny Rhine, Cecilia Botero, Michele R. Tennant and Steven Carrico University of Florida 2005 Joint Meeting of the CSUL Committees November 8, 2005

Hypothesis widespread access to online journals has resulted in significant usage increases of the basic sciences and clinical medicine journal collections this includes subscriptions that have been added via numerous consortial agreements.

Setting - UF transition from predominantly print serials subscriptions to the online/print or online only access formats access to more than 4,200 basic sciences and clinical medicine online journals primarily from University-wide and State University Libraries of Florida consortial agreements

Participants three major UF Libraries: Smathers Libraries – humanities and social sciences Marston Science Library – basic sciences Health Science Center Libraries – basic sciences and clinical medicine

Methodology - Study based on statistics gathered from COUNTER-compliant publishers focused on vendor-supplied usage statistics derived from library patrons downloading full-text articles statistics from 2004 calendar year usage

Methodology continued online titles with zero hits were verified for subscription and ready access non-accessible online titles were removed from further analysis a random sample of 682 titles was used; this represents 10 percent of the total and is accurate to .04 standard deviation

What We Knew Library patrons and researchers access health, medical and general sciences library resources substantially more than do library patrons who access resources in the humanities and social sciences.

What We Learned and What Surprised Us Smathers Libraries continue to access the online journals significantly less than users of the HSC Libraries and Marston Science Library, despite the fact that the Smathers Libraries' stacks are closed due to a massive building renovation.

What We Knew The 'Big Deal' and consortial packages for online resources are siphoning an increasingly larger percentage of the library budget.

What We Learned and What Surprised Us In the big picture (cost per article and access to more online journals), the 'Big Deals' in many cases (e.g., Elsevier, Wiley) are also 'Good Deals'.

What We Knew The HSC Libraries subscribe to online resources that are both underutilized and too expensive to be cost-effective and therefore should be reviewed for cancellation.

What We Learned and What Surprised Us After eliminating 'Big Deal' package titles for individual cancellation and high-use online journal subscriptions from independent publishers, few titles are both underused and expensive; thus, such cancellations would save little on the budget.

What We Knew The HSC Libraries' book budget for FY 2005/2006 is 5 percent of the total allocation, down from 12.5 percent in FY 2000/2001.

What We Learned and What Surprised Us Once reference and textbook purchases are made each fiscal year, the remaining monograph funds are so limited that book selection by collection managers is almost a thing of the past.

What We Knew The University of Florida increased the number of accessible online journals through new consortial agreements.

What We Learned and What Surprised Us Significantly more titles were made accessible (almost 100 percent more in most disciplines), and there was substantial usage of the added titles (an average of 204 full-text downloads per clinical medicine title).

What We Knew Traditionally, libraries have accepted the 20/80 Rule (20 percent of the collection gets 80 percent of the use) as being the yardstick for general use of print journal collections.

What We Learned and What Surprised Us According to our usage statistics of online journals, the 20/80 Rule is more of a 40/80 Rule.

What We Knew The top 20 online journal titles would emerge from the ISI Journal Citation Report sub-disciplines of Medicine (General and Internal), Medicine (Research and Experimental), and Multidisciplinary Science.

What We Learned and What Surprised Us Not one of the top 20 online journals was from the subdiscipline of Medicine (Research and Experimental).

Recommendations For Future Study examine the current impact of online journal usage on the print journal collection review online/print packages for possible cancellations of print to reduce maintenance costs analyze the data tied to specific disciplines – ISI Journal Citation Reports design an ongoing mechanism to evaluate vendor-supplied electronic usage data and gather in-house electronic usage statistics

Recommendations continued conduct a Health Science Center Libraries-wide User Survey to gather data on: patron satisfaction/dissatisfaction methods to assist in collection management decision-making and materials fund reallocation ideas for redesigning the webpage and improving the accessibility of online resources impact of online journal usage on grant research writing