User Needs and Usage as Seen Through a Consortium lib.consortium.ch Workshop on E-Journals: Jornades sobre revistes digitals: de l’autor i el productor a l‘usuari 21 Nov 2002, Barcelona Arlette Piguet, Head of Central Office

Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries: Facts & Figures What do Users Need to Access Electronic Information? Assessing End-User Requirements Products Currently Offered / Providers Presentation of E-Journals to End-User Introduction of New Products Is the Consortium Meeting the End-Users Needs? Some Usage Statistics Summary and Concluding Remarks Outline Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

Services Offered by Swiss Academic Libraries Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries Usage of SpringerLINK 1999 – 2001 E-journals become increasingly popular !

Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries: Facts & Figures I 10 cantonal universities 2 technical universities, 4 research institutes 7 universities of applied sciences National Library Secondary partners -Project term: 2000 – Additional governmental funds available for license fees. -Libraries’ contributions are financial and non- financial. - Project partners: Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

Number of potential users (FTEs): 24 institutions; covering three language regions; partly different subject coverage Various university libraries also act as public library Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries: Facts & Figures II

Organisational Structure Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

Library A Library C Library B Consortium ? Content (coverage and relevance) Well-known services Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries What do Users Need to Access Electronic Information? User friendly interface

Regular surveys at libraries: - Which products are requested ? (content) - Which provider is preferred? (interface) Organisation of trial periods / product evaluation. Central Office Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries Assessing End-User Requirements (I) Library

- Evaluates end-user requirements - Suggests new products to central office - Conducts product and interfaces trials Library Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries Assessing End-User Requirements (II) Working groups / Experts

Products Currently Offered Product portfolio covers all disciplines according to needs. Databases: 34 databases Electronic journals: 3‘100 titles  Licence agreements cover complete journal packages - Kluwer - Nature Publishing Group (NPG) - Springer - Wiley - AAAS (Science) - Academic Press - Elsevier - IOP - JSTOR Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

Providers of the Products Available Databases SilverPlatter (local hosting at ETHZ) / OVID (USA) / EBSCOHost Web of Science (local hosting at ETHZ)) Servers of the respective providers Electronic journals Servers of the publishers Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

Presentation of E-Journals to End-User (I) -Link to publisher or third party provider, resp.: Responsibility of library. Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

- Entry in library catalogue - Some libraries maintain portals Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries Presentation of E-Journals to End-User (II)

Introduction of New Products Library Interface Training... End-user Central Office Public relations Organisation of courses for the staff responsible for training at libraries Help desk Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

50‘000 article downloads Is the Consortium Meeting the End-Users Needs? Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

Usage Statistics Collection, analysis and evaluation of usage data of each product. Consortial partners have password-protected access to their usage statistics (via WWW). Central Office Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

E-Journals: Consortial Gain Additional titles A consortium enriches the library‘s collection with new titles that weren‘t subscribed to before. Cross Access Users can download articles they didn‘t have access to before. Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

Additional Titles: Shown according to Publisher (all Institutions) Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

Additional Titles: Shown for 4 Selected Institutions 100 % Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

Average Usage per Title Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

Access to Titles Held in Print / Titles not Held in Print: Wiley Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

80 % 22% Percentage of Usage versus Percentage of Titles Available: Wiley Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

Consortial Gain by Subject: SpringerLINK (I) Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

Consortial Gain by Subject: SpringerLINK (II)

Summary Usage of electronic journals available via the Consortium is rising. Almost all titles available are used. However, frequency of usage varies strongly. Some “low end” titles are rarely used. Titles held in print are used up to 10 x as often as those not held in print. This result is proven by other consortia. For the individual library the consortial gain can be very valuable. Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

ETH-Bibliothek as an example: (Source: ETH-Bibliothek, Alice Keller) Offer of E-Journals: Which User Needs Are Covered by the National Consortium? A consortium allows a library to offer more information to their users. However, it can never satisfy all user requirements. Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

Thank you very much for your attention ! Where you can find this presentation: Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries