ONLINE JOURNAL USAGE STATISTICS FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA: What We Learned and What Surprised Us

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ONLINE JOURNAL USAGE STATISTICS FOR THE
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDAWhat 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

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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.
  

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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
  

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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
  

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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

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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
  

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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.

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What We Learned andWhat 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.

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What We Knew

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

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What We Learned andWhat 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'.

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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.

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What We Learned andWhat 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.

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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.

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What We Learned andWhat 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.

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What We Knew

• The University of Florida increased the number
  of accessible online journals through new
  consortial agreements.

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What We Learned andWhat 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).

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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.

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What We Learned andWhat Surprised Us

• According to our usage statistics of online
  journals, the 20/80 Rule is more of a 40/80
  Rule.
  

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What We Knew

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

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What We Learned andWhat Surprised Us

• Not one of the top 20 online journals was from
  the subdiscipline of Medicine (Research and
  Experimental).

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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
  

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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