User Needs and Usage as Seen Through a Consortium

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User Needs and Usage as Seen Through a Consortium

• lib.consortium.ch

Workshop on E-Journals Jornades sobre revistes
digitals de lautor i el productor a
lusuari 21 Nov 2002, Barcelona
Arlette Piguet, Head of Central Office
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Outline

• 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

Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries
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Services Offered by Swiss Academic Libraries
E-journals become increasingly popular !
Usage of SpringerLINK 1999 2001
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Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries Facts
Figures I
- Project partners

• 10 cantonal universities
• 2 technical universities, 4 research institutes
• 7 universities of applied sciences
• National Library
• Secondary partners

• Project term 2000 2003
• Additional governmental funds available for
  license fees.
• Libraries contributions are financial and
  non- financial.

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Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries Facts
Figures II
Number of potential users (FTEs)

• 24 institutions covering three language
  regions partly different subject coverage
• Various university libraries also act as public
  library

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Organisational Structure
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What do Users Need to Access Electronic
Information?
Consortium ?
User friendly interface
Well-known services
Library B
Library A
Library C
Content (coverage and relevance)
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Assessing End-User Requirements (I)
Central Office

• Regular surveys at libraries
• Which products are requested ? (content)
• Which provider is preferred? (interface)
• Organisation of trial periods / product
  evaluation.

Library
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Assessing End-User Requirements (II)
Library
Working groups / Experts

• Evaluates end-user requirements
• Suggests new products to central office
• Conducts product and interfaces trials

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Products Currently Offered

• Product portfolio covers all disciplines
  according to needs.
• Databases 34 databases
• Electronic journals 3100 titles
• Licence agreements cover complete journal
  packages

• - Kluwer
• Nature Publishing Group (NPG)
• Springer
• Wiley

• AAAS (Science)
• Academic Press
• Elsevier
• IOP
• JSTOR

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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

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Presentation of E-Journals to End-User (I)
Responsibility of library.

• Link to publisher
• or third party provider, resp.

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Presentation of E-Journals to End-User (II)

• Entry in library catalogue
• Some libraries maintain portals

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Introduction of New Products

• Central Office
• Public relations
• Organisation of courses for the staff
  responsible for training at libraries
• Help desk

• Library
• Interface
• Training
• ...

End-user
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Is the Consortium Meeting the End-Users Needs?
50000 article downloads
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Usage Statistics
Central Office

• Collection, analysis and evaluation of usage data
  of each product.
• Consortial partners have password-protected
  access to their usage statistics (via WWW).

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E-Journals Consortial Gain
Additional titles A consortium enriches the
librarys collection with new titles that werent
subscribed to before. Cross Access Users can
download articles they didnt have access to
before.
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Additional Titles Shown according to
Publisher (all Institutions)
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Additional Titles Shown for 4 Selected
Institutions
100
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Average Usage per Title
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Access to Titles Held in Print / Titles not Held
in Print Wiley
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Percentage of Usage versus Percentage of Titles
Available Wiley
80
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Consortial Gain by Subject SpringerLINK (I)
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Consortial Gain by Subject SpringerLINK (II)
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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.

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Offer of E-Journals Which User Needs Are Covered
by the National Consortium?
ETH-Bibliothek as an example
(Source ETH-Bibliothek, Alice Keller)
A consortium allows a library to offer more
information to their users. However, it can never
satisfy all user requirements.
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Thank you very much for your attention ! Where
you can find this presentation http//lib.consort
ium.ch/Literaturliste_d.html
Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries