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The ARL E-Metrics Projects: Counting and Evaluating the Use of Electronic Resources

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has been examining how libraries could best measure the extent to which electronic resources make a difference to library users. A concerted effort to establish a standard set of statistics to be reported collectively by ARL members was made during 2000-2001. A subset of ARL members self-funded a project resulting in a recommended set of measures, which addressed the amount, extent of use, and the costs of electronic resources, as well as a few measures to begin to collect information on library digitization activities. The descriptive measures took into account other national and international efforts to establish descriptive statistics for electronic resources such as the ICOLC Guidelines for Statistical Measures of Usage of Web-Based Information Resources; the work done to revise Z39.7, Information Services and Use: Metrics & statistics for libraries and information providers - Data Dictionary; and Project COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources), an international initiative designed to serve librarians, publishers and intermediaries by facilitating the recording and exchange of online usage statistics.

A larger group of ARL members has been testing the recommended measures and associated reporting instructions in preparation for data collection by all members beginning in 2004.

The data elements for serials currently being tested for measurement include:

Patron-Accessible Electronic Resources

  • Number of electronic journals purchased
  • Number of electronic full-text journals purchased
  • Number of current electronic journals not purchased
  • Number of electronic reference sources

Expenditures for Networked Resources & Related Infrastructure

  • Cost of current electronic journals purchased
  • Cost of electronic full-text journals purchased
  • Cost of electronic reference sources

Recognizing that descriptive statistics for electronic resources were only one element in the mix of how important electronic resources to users, ARL is engaged in other projects to look at the value library users place on electronic resources. The MINES (Measuring the Impact of Networked Electronic Services) Project is a Web-based survey that a library could administer to collect reliable data on the usage of networked electronic services from both within the library and remotely through the Web. It was developed by Brinley Franklin (University of Connecticut) and Terry Plum (Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences) and documents which specific electronic resources were being used by library patrons and why (serand tracks the differences between in-house and Web usage.

ARL is also extending its LibQUAL+TM (library service quality) project to the digital library environment. This effort, called e-QUAL, is partially supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, National Science Digital Library (NSF/NSDL) and is intended to develop user-based methods for understanding the value derived from the use of electronic resources and how libraries can contribute to library user success.

References

ARL E-Metrics Project
www.arl.org/stats/newmeas/emetrics/contract00-01.html (external link)
www.arl.org/newsltr/230/emetrics.html (external link)
www.arl.org/stats/newmeas/emetrics/index.html (external link)

ICOLC Guidelines for Statistical Measures of Usage of Web-Based Information Resources (Update: December 2001)
www.library.yale.edu/consortia/2001webstats.htm (external link)

NISO Z39.7 Information Services and use: Metrics & statistics for libraries and information providers - Data Dictionary
www.niso.org/emetrics/ (external link)

Project COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources)
www.projectcounter.org/ (external link)

MINES (Measuring the Impact of Networked Electronic Services)
www.arl.org/newsltr/230/usage.html (external link)

e-QUAL
www.arl.org/newsltr/230/libqual.html (external link)
www.arl.org/stats/newmeas/emetrics/nsdl.html (external link)

Julia C. Blixrud
Assistant Executive Director, External Relations, ARL
Assistant Director, Public Programs, SPARC

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