Lea Currie and Kathy Graves Brick and Click Libraries November 4, 2011

Academic libraries have long collected usage statistics to help with retention decisions. – Usage statistics are updated twice annually on a staff intranet site. – KU Libraries stewardship program for electronic resources with costs over $2000. – Electronic resource reviews for resources with ongoing costs. – Yet, we do not take the time to look at usage statistics for our one-time purchases.

“An ostrich with its head in the sand is just as blind to opportunity as to disaster” - Anonymous Do our purchased electronic resources get used? Has use increased or decreased with time? What types of resources get the greatest use? Do the number of faculty and students in various departments impact usage? Is heavy use associated with large class assignments? Do low numbers indicate that service staff and library instructors need to be better promoting these resources? Are there correlations between cost and use of these resources? Have we spent our money wisely on these resources?

For this study, we collected statistics for 44 one- time purchased electronic resources. Electronic resources with costs over $2000. Usage statistics were collected for 2008, 2009, and 2010 when it was available, but there were gaps and inconsistencies over time. We interviewed the subject librarians most closely associated with and most likely to promote a resource. It was difficult to run the statistics through SPSS, because they were inconsistent.

We split the resources into the following categories: – Documents – manuscripts, letters, ephemera. – E-books – large collections, individual titles. – Indices – Journals – Newspapers

1% of our entire collections budget is spent on annual maintenance fees to support these resources. Cost per use ranged from $ per session to $.79 per session. Cost per search ranged from $ to $.68. Statistics must be collected in snapshots.

Documents – Mean – Average cost - $37,765 – Number of sessions – 4748 – Number of searches – 6546 – Cost per session - $ – Cost per search - $7.73 – No correlation between one-time cost and use – Early American Imprints = lowest use – Black Thought and Culture (ASP) = highest use – In all cases, usage increased over time.

E-books – Mean – Average cost - $38,866 – Number of sessions – 1682 – Number of searches – 1370 – Cost per session – $83.98 – Cost per search - $26.98 – No correlation between one-time cost and use – Early English Books = highest use – Dictionary of Irish Biography = lowest use – Use fluctuates over time.

Indices – Mean – Average cost - $17,505 – Number of sessions – 213 – Number of searches – 657 – Cost per session - $2628 – Cost per search - $3019 – No correlation between one-time cost and use – Humanities and Social Sciences = lowest use – C19 = highest use – Wild fluctuations in use over time.

Journals – Mean – Average cost - $30,707 – Number of sessions – 8118 – Number of searches – 7429 – Cost per session - $83.37 – Cost per search - $20.02 – No correlation between one-time cost and use – International Sociology = lowest use – American Periodical Series Online = highest use – Wild fluctuations in use over time.

Newspapers – Mean – Average cost - $37,045 – Number of sessions – 1060 – Number of searches – 3396 – Cost per session - $95.50 – Cost per search – $24.46 – No correlation between one-time cost and use – A few of the titles get the highest use of all one-time purchases – Use is steadily increasing over time.

In most cases, use fluctuates over time. Newspapers get the highest use. These resources appeal to history students and faculty – large department with many students. Heavy use is associated with large class assignments. Promoting resources does increase use. Catalog records for individual titles also increase use. No correlation between cost and use.

What kinds of resources get the highest use at your institution? How do you promote your one-time purchases? How do we budget for maintenance fees? Is this form of one-time purchasing sustainable for academic libraries? Questions? Lea Currie Kathy Graves –