From What to Why: Electronic Resource Usage Data in Collection Development and User Behavior Karen A. Coombs NISO Usage Data Forum November 1-2, 2007 Dallas, TX

What

Number of successful full text accesses Numbers of searches Database turn aways Journal Turn aways Ways of Examining What

If they use it lots does that make it good?

What COUNTER Doesn't Tell Us Where the user started What path the user took to get to the resource Why they used this resource Why the user took this particular route

Learned about it in an library class Professor showed them Part of the federated search tool On library webpage Able to find it in Google Scholar Had full text Many facets to why students choose a particular database or resource

Does how they got there matter ?

Many different paths to access materials Alphabetical by Title Database List Subject Database List A-Z Lists of Journals OpenURL Resolvers Federated Search Tools RSS Feed of Table of Contents RSS Feed of New Articles of Interest Table of Content Services Google Scholar WorldCat Library Toolbars and Browser Embedded Search boxes

Users have choices of how they access our resources

Need to know more about the... …of our resources being used Who?Where? How? When?

Ethnography Getting at who, where, when, how, & why Examine log files, session path tracing

How is this useful? Better understanding of what resources a specific user group uses improves collections personalization better market resources, training and library education Better understanding of the paths user take to resources Enhance Findability Assess the effectiveness of new access points Better market resources Better placement of help and assistance