Performance measurement in a changing environment The SCONUL e-measures project 2010
The SCONUL e-measures project Pat Barclay, University of Westminster Angela Conyers, Evidence Base, Birmingham City University Claire Creaser, LISU, Loughborough University Sonya White, LISU, Loughborough University
Plan E-measures pilot project New e-measures questions Issues to consider The first year What difference did it make?
e-measures pilot project Aims To review current e-measures questions and definitions To draw together feedback on current e-measures To look at approach taken by other national library associations To make recommendations for amendments and/or additions to existing e-measures questions
Pilot members 20 libraries took part Set of possible questions developed Asked to submit quarterly returns and comment: How easy were the data to obtain? How reliable were they? How well did they align with institutional requirements?
New e-measures questions Four key areas of change: 1. Inclusion of e-journals and e-books held within databases in the count of serial and e-book titles 2. Addition of free titles or titles purchased in previous years 3. Addition of database searches as a usage measure 4. Separation of costs of different types of e-resource
Some issues to consider How will the new e-measures statistics be used? Longer term trends Can SCONUL provide more help?
The first year How did it go? Experimental – little advance warning BUT Number of respondents to new or revised questions was high (generally around 140 out of total 148 respondents) Suggests questions fit better with existing library practice?
e-books in databases: EEBO or not EEBO? Some disagreed: “I have included EEBO or EECO in the count because that is the instruction but we have not added bib records to the library catalogue so I feel it distorts our EBook count” Others felt it reflected trend: “As e-books become more prevalent and in demand we now allocate 20% of our book budget towards their purchase”. Perhaps the time was right to make the change?
Serials – double counting? Is it possible to identify unique titles? “There is a considerable amount of duplication between content of backfiles and current subscriptions, and between titles available on a number of different platforms. It is impossible to deduplicate these titles with any accuracy, and the total in C16 is therefore not the total of unique titles.” Does it matter?
Databases - Journals E-book Other Why the distinction?
Usage measures Journals – full text article requests- COUNTER JR1 E-books – section requests COUNTER BR2 “Only 4 of 22 e-book resources licensed currently provide BR2 reports. Data for most of others obtained by BR1 x 5.4.” Databases – searches COUNTER DB1 “No data available for 14 databases. In addition, 24 databases did not provide search data.”
Costs Separating out spend on print, print and electronic and electronic only “Some figures are rounded up. Not possible to disentangle spend on the various definitions of serials/journal databases: that on e-journals is by far the largest part so total figure is entered in H4” or “Note the reduction in print journals as a collection decision for 2009/10, with a view to reducing costs”
What difference has it made? Quite a lot! Available resources now all included in the reporting Better fit to what users see ... and to what is reported internally Spending can be sliced to match Improved PIs Usage better match to resources and to costs
E-journals
eBooks
Databases
Spending
Costs per use
Use per title
What next Needs time to bed in Some tweaks to definitions for Continue to monitor trends In reported data And in library practice!
Acknowledgements & contact details Thanks go to: Sonya White, LISU Loughborough University Members of the SCONUL Working Group on Performance Improvement The 20 E-measures pilot libraries Contact details: Pat Barclay, University of Westminster Angela Conyers, Birmingham City University Claire Creaser, Loughborough University