Measuring the Validity of Usage Reports Provided by E Book Vendors Emerging Research and Opportunities pdf pdf

  

Measuring the Validity of

Usage Reports Provided by E-Book Vendors: Emerging Research and Opportunities

  Aiping Chen-Gaffey Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, USA Heather Getsay Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, USA

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Chen-Gaffey, Aiping, 1958- author. | Getsay, Heather, 1973- author. Title: Measuring the validity of usage reports provided by e-book vendors : emerging research and opportunities / by Aiping Chen-Gaffey and Heather Getsay. Description: Hershey, PA : Information Science Reference, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2017015196| ISBN 9781522532385 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781522532392 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Libraries--Special collections--Electronic books. | Electronic books--Use studies. | COUNTER (Organization) | Acquisition of electronic information resources. | Collection management (Libraries)--Statistical methods.

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  Table of Contents

Preface .................................................................................................................. vi

  Chapter 1 What Is COUNTER and Why Is It Important? ......................................................1 Chapter 2 COUNTER: Standardization of E-Books Statistics .............................................10 Chapter 3 Case Study Part 1: Sorting Out the Data Mess ....................................................20 Chapter 4 Case Study Part 2: Apples, Oranges, and Pears ...................................................30 Chapter 5 Case Study Part 3: More Apples, Oranges, and Pears – Interpreting Ebrary,

EBSCO, and Safari Non-COUNTER Reports .....................................................55

Chapter 6 COUNTER and Non-COUNTER: Consolidating Vendor-Provided Usage

Reports .................................................................................................................73

Chapter 7 Findings, Discussion, and Recommendations .....................................................97

Related Readings .............................................................................................. 109

About the Authors ............................................................................................ 128

Index .................................................................................................................. 129

  vi Preface

  Imagine yourself being a collection assessment librarian who conducts a comprehensive review of usage statistics for different e-book collections. The usage reports are available from different vendors. In addition to the challenge of interpreting data, you find it difficult to compare usage of various collections. Not only do the usage reports look different from various vendors, but also they differ in data metrics. For example, the usage report(s) from Vendor A contains a detailed account of usage at title level; Vendor B reports on usage with its own unique usage metrics, mostly at a collection level; while Vendor C offers reports with yet a different set of data categories. Some of the vendors offer a different type of reports, labelled as “COUNTER Reports,” in addition to their standard usage reports. Although the COUNTER Reports appear to be more unified across the vendors, they do not always contain the specific usage information you seek. Also, by a closer review you discover that even the COUNTER reports vary among the vendors. Unfamiliar with COUNTER reports, you wonder what are the genuine differences between the COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports. In short, even before evaluating the usage data you are faced with the challenge to select relevant reports that are comparable across the vendors… While this imaginary story may or may not sound familiar to you, it is precisely the situation the authors encountered in Summer of 2015.

  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all e-books vendors and publishers would provide uniform usage reports which librarians can use to compare usage of e-books collections from different vendors? Is this possible? What are COUNTER reports? Why do vendors provide COUNTER reports in addition to their local usage reports? This book is not about usage per se; it is about issues surrounding usage reports. Instead of conducting a library usage study, the authors are attempting an investigation into the current usage reporting standards and reports offered by a sample of vendors.

STANDARDIZATION OF USAGE REPORTS

  Academic librarians face challenges with interpreting usage statistics provided by vendors. Despite the various initiatives from international library and information communities “to bring reliability, consistency, and uniformity to the usage reports” for more than a decade (Gul & Shah, 2014; Pesch, 2007, 2011; Shepherd, 2004, 2006), many issues regarding usage reports raised by the library community remain unresolved. Incompatibility among usage reports is still a major obstacle librarians struggle to overcome (JUSP ebook discussion forum report, 2016).

  Project COUNTER, the latest effort in the standardization of usage reports, achieved its first significant milestone with the inception of the COUNTER

  

Code of Practice . The success of COUNTER standards is exhibited by their

  wide application in the library and publishing community and the growing number of electronic content providers who embrace the Code of Practice. Since 2002, the start of Project COUNTER, there have been four releases of the COUNTER Code of Practice. COUNTER published its first release of the Code of Practice in January 2003, thus setting the first international standards for reporting usage of electronic resources. The second release was published in 2006, adding information requested by librarians since Release

  1. Release 2 specifically addressed issues concerning terminology, layout and format of reports, and data processing (Pesch, 2007). COUNTER Release 3 (for Journals and Databases) took effect in 2009. It incorporated SUSHI (the ANSI/NISO Z39.93 Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative). The SUSHI Protocol made it possible to automate the process of retrieving COUNTER-compliant usage data. However, it is not until the current release of the COUNTER Code of Practice (Release 4), when e-books vendors began to implement the COUNTER standards. Release 4 was published in December 2013 and its implementation started in January 2014. One of the most significant developments with COUNTER Release 4 is that it integrated the book reports as part of the latest COUNTER Code of Practice.

  How successful is the implementation of COUNTER standards for counting e-books usage? Although there has been abundant literature on standardization of usage statistics and more specifically on COUNTER, most of the existing COUNTER studies have focused on journals and database usage reports. A review of current research publications shows very little on COUNTER reports concerning electronic books. Therefore, the authors felt compelled to conduct a case study on the vendor implementation of COUNTER book reports and issues specifically related to e-books usage reports.

PURPOSE, SCOPE, ORGANIZATION

  The present book is primarily about e-books usage reports. More specifically, it describes the authors’ experience with, questions about, and exploration of COUNTER book reports and its implementation by vendors. The authors will examine how consistent and compatible are the usage reports librarians receive from various e-book vendors by analyzing three vendor cases. The case study will focus on what types of usage data are delivered by the e-books providers, and how the data are presented. The book will investigate what issues and challenges librarians face in interpreting vendor provided usage data, with the primary focus on data provided by COUNTER standard reports.

  Although SUSHI has become an integral part of COUNTER Code of Practice, this book intends to only discuss the content standards of COUNTER reports. The technical aspects concerning data processing are less of a focus in this book. Also, the case study and discussions are based on COUNTER standards and usage data under Release 4. The authors anticipate the advent of the COUNTER Code Practice Release 5 in the near future, which will bring about new changes and improvement of the COUNTER standards.

  The authors hope that COUNTER Release 5 will address at least some of the issues raised in the current study.

  The other factors to consider are the setting of the study: it involves a medium-sized academic institution. The scope of the research is limited to the size of the library e-books collection, and the number of vendors under investigation is limited to the circumstances of this institution. Therefore, some of issues raised in this book may be more typical for small to medium sized libraries.

  The main purpose of this book is to help librarians understand the common issues surrounding the usage reports produced by e-book vendors. The authors seek to achieve the following objectives:

  1. Understand and evaluate COUNTER standards on the reporting of e-book usage;

  2. Examine and identify issues with vendor practices in collecting and delivering usage reports, including COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports;

  3. Explore solutions to overcome issues and interpret vendor usage data in a more meaningful way.

  The book is divided into seven chapters, exploring five main topics:

  1. What is COUNTER Code of Practice?

  2. How successful is the implementation of COUNTER book reports in the present case study?

  3. How do COUNTER Book Reports 1-5 compare with vendors’ “local” standard usage reports?

  4. Is it possible to consolidate COUNTER and non-COUNTER data?

  5. What are some practical solutions to overcome issues and challenges in interpreting usage data? The core part of the book is a case study, which examines and/or verifies whether the data presented in vendor COUNTER reports followed the

  COUNTER Code of Practice; whether the data are credible, consistent, and compatible, or to what degree; and what role vendors’ non-COUNTER reports play in providing usage data.

  Chapters 1 and 2 are about the COUNTER Code of Practice and COUNTER book reports. Chapter 1 gives a brief account on Project COUNTER, its purpose, underlying principles and core standards, and more importantly, who will benefit from the COUNTER standards.

  Chapter 2 describes each COUNTER standard report for e-book usage data, pointing to potential issues as they have been implemented by e-books vendors. For example, the fact that COUNTER book reports allow vendors to choose which reports to implement and the flexibility to define content type for certain data categories could lead to discrepancies and inconsistencies among vendors in providing COUNTER reports.

  Chapters 3 and 4 explore COUNTER Book Reports 1-5 and Platform Report 1 and their implementation by major vendors. Chapter 3 introduces a case study, which involves a medium-sized academic library that has been acquiring e-books primarily through large subscription packages from three major vendors. It describes the setting, data collection, and methodology of the study. The chapter describes the current implementation of COUNTER book reports by three vendors. It identifies what COUNTER and non- COUNTER reports each vendor provides, examines the COUNTER usage reports against the COUNTER Code of Practice, and evaluates the degree of their compliance.

  Chapter 4 examines COUNTER data in detail. The chapter follows COUNTER guidelines and vendor documentation in the attempt to interpret COUNTER book reports from each vendor and examine their creditability, consistency, and comparability. It explores the implications of the fact that vendors do not provide same COUNTER book reports and/or implement the COUNTER standards differently. For example, what are the consequences when COUNTER provides vendors with choices among the standard book reports, while the “alternatives” are not quite the same? The chapter identifies issues in interpreting vendor-provided COUNTER reports with examples and data illustrations.

  Chapters 5 and 6 compare vendor COUNTER reports with non-COUNTER reports. Chapter 5 evaluates vendor non-COUNTER reports against the same principles; it examines in detail what unique data these “local” reports provide, as well as identifies potential issues in interpreting these reports. Primary issues and questions to be addressed include the wide variation in the number and types of non-COUNTER reports vendors provide, what unique data these reports contribute, and whether non-COUNTER reports fill gaps with COUNTER reports. The chapter also looks at the challenge of comparing variant terminology used to describe data categories among the vendors, and finally whether, despite their differences, the non-COUNTER data are compatible with COUNTER data.

  Chapter 6 reviews vendor COUNTER and non-COUNTER data in a larger context. It explores the possibility and feasibility to consolidate useful data from vendor COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports and discusses how to overcome the disparities and fill the gaps among the usage data from different vendors.

  Chapter 7 summarizes findings on COUNTER book reports and vendor practices with COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports, discusses the root of issues, and seeks possible solutions. It concludes with recommendations for best practices in dealing with vendor usage reports.

TARGET AUDIENCE

  The target audience for this book will be library professionals, library science students, publishers, vendors, and the COUNTER standards community.

  Library professionals will benefit from the detailed examination of available e-book vendor reports. The continuing growth of electronic resources available to the library community increases the demand on collection development librarians to assess these resources. Due to budget constraints librarians increasingly rely on vendor-provided usage data to support or justify their collection development decisions. Usage data help them assess the value of their collections and make informed decisions on renewals. In addition, usage reports help them understand users’ needs and trends. However, vendor usage reports do not always provide clear, consistent, and easy to understand data. Although COUNTER Release 4 offers specific standards for reporting e-books usage, different content providers may interpret and implement these standards differently, especially when COUNTER allows them certain flexibility in the implementation. Therefore, it will be helpful for librarians to learn about COUNTER principles, being able to discern what data are required by COUNTER, and recognize issues and challenges with interpreting usage data.

  Library science students will be introduced to inherent challenges of managing usage statistics that they may encounter in their future careers. It is important for them to learn the process of electronic resource management, from dissemination and acquisitions to assessment, and the standards and tools involved in the process. They should learn what specific issues and challenges the library and information communities are facing in assessing e-books usage.

  For vendors and developers of the COUNTER standards, the discussions, findings, and recommendations made in this book may encourage further standardization and improvement of usage statistics. COUNTER standards for reporting of e-books usage are relatively new. It has been only three years since the implementation of COUNTER Book Report 1-5 Release 4. Most e-book vendors and publishers have been delivering usage reports to their customers before COUNTER reports emerged. As result, they offer COUNTER reports in addition to their “local” reports. It is important for them to hear feedback from their customers. It is important for them know what specific issues and challenges their customers have with the usage data they deliver, because as content and service providers they are to make sure that their customers receive creditable, consistent, and comparable usage data.

  REFERENCES JUSP ebook discussion forum report. (2016). Retrieved from

   Pesch, O. (2007). Usage statistics: About COUNTER and SUSHI. Information Services & Use , 27(4), 207–213.

  Pesch, O. (2011). Perfecting COUNTER and SUSHI to achieve reliable usage analysis. The Serials Librarian, 61(3-4), 353–365. Shepherd, P. T. (2004). COUNTER: Towards reliable vendor usage statistics.

  

VINE: The Journal of Information & Knowledge Management Systems, 34 (4),

  184-189. doi:10.1108103055720410570975

  1 Chapter 1 What Is COUNTER and

Why Is It Important?

  ABSTRACT

Electronic usage data serves an important purpose for librarians who need

to assess user activities with electronic collections. Comparing usage reports

by different vendors requires sorting out the various types of reports that are

available and assessing how and if they can effectively be compared. This

book attempts to investigate what makes vendor usage reports compatible

or incompatible, and to what degree. It includes a case study where the

authors analyze and interpret their institution’s data in order to provide

others with possible strategies for productively engaging with e-book usage

reports. Chapter 1 gives a brief account on Project COUNTER (Counting

Networked Electronic Resources). COUNTER supports the process of

collection assessment by providing standards for vendors and publishers to

follow in delivering usage data to libraries. The COUNTER Code of Practice

aims for usage data to be credible, consistent, and comparable, three core

principles. This chapter describes the purpose of COUNTER, its underlying

principles and core standards, and more importantly, who will benefit from

the COUNTER standards.

  DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-3238-5.ch001

  INTRODUCTION

  The idea for this book emerged from a research project which required the authors to retrieve and analyze e-book usage reports. Using reports generated from both ebrary and EBSCO, the authors attempted to sort out the data and make comparisons between the vendors. In struggling to find commonalities, it became evident that comparing usage reports of ebrary to EBSCO was like comparing “apples” with “oranges,” as the two could not be directly linked. Furthermore, each vendor provided various types of reports, which created an abundance of data for the authors to consider.

  The authors found that comparing usage reports by different vendors would require sorting out the various types of reports that were available and assessing how and if they could effectively be compared. Prompted by that experience, the authors felt compelled to investigate what makes vendor usage reports compatible or incompatible, and to what degree. Additionally, they aimed to analyze and interpret their institution’s data to provide others with possible strategies for productively engaging with e-book usage reports.

MAIN FOCUS

  Usage reports are important assessment tools for librarians when making collection development and cancellation decisions. Understanding and using report data effectively may be facilitated by gaining additional insight into the types of reports that are offered by various vendors. The purpose of this book is 1) for librarians, to make sense of usage reports provided by e-book vendors to determine what data are available and how the data can be interpreted, 2) for library science students, to serve as an introduction to the benefits and challenges of vendor-produced usage reports, 3) for vendors, to help them understand librarians’ perspectives and provide feedback on using vendor reports, and 4) for the standards community, to offer observations and share

  In writing this book the authors aim to introduce readers to the types of usage reports available, including COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports; recognize unique data offered by each type of reports; examine inherent challenges with interpreting usage data; and discuss potential solutions for the problem of comparing “apples” with “oranges” in usage reports. The primary focus will be given to COUNTER reports. The goal of this book is to help librarians better understand how COUNTER works and interpret usage data from vendor-provided reports.

  By analyzing and comparing usage reports in a case study, the authors will assess vendor COUNTER reports against credibility, consistency, and

  compatibility , the three COUNTER principles.

  This book will:

  • Examine and/or verify:

  Whether the data presented in vendor COUNTER reports followed ◦ the COUNTER standards;

  Whether the data are credible, consistent, and compatible, and to ◦ what degree;

  Evaluate vendor non-COUNTER reports against the same principles; •

  • Identify potential issues and challenges in interpreting data;
  • Explore the root of issues and seek possible resolutions;
  • Attempt to consolidate vendor COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports, finding strengths of both while seeking solutions to overcome disparities, inconsistencies, and incompatibility among reports from different vendors.

  Readers will: Learn about the COUNTER standards; •

  • Understand how data are delivered or presented in COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports by publishers and vendors; Discover unique data offered by both types of vendor reports; • Recognize and overcome challenges with interpreting usage data. •

COUNTER OVERVIEW

  COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources) is an international initiative to provide standards for measuring usage of electronic resources. COUNTER operates as a non-profit organization and includes members from the library, publisher, and vendor communities. COUNTER promotes a spirit of collaboration in maintaining The COUNTER Code of Practice , the principal document of the COUNTER standards.

  Members participate in the development of COUNTER standards. This collaborative effort aims to bring consistency to usage reporting by publishers and vendors. Consistent reporting makes data more compatible, and ultimately more useful to librarians. With the implementation of COUNTER reports, data are intended to be organized for clarity and uniformity. More importantly, data should be credible, consistent, and comparable.

  Besides the Code of Practice, the COUNTER organization maintains the “Registries of Compliance” – a list of the publishers and vendors who have become COUNTER compliant. COUNTER provides vendors and publishers with guidance on implementation of COUNTER standards. It also ensures that publishers and vendors undergo annual independent audits.

  How Did COUNTER Emerge? A Quick History

  Prior to the implementation of COUNTER standards, librarians had only individual vendors’ custom usage reports – i.e. non-COUNTER reports. One major issue with these locally produced reports is their incompatibility with one another. Pesch (2007) describes the challenges librarians were facing in managing usage statistics for a growing list of electronic resources. For example, e-vendors either did not provide reports or provided reports with inconsistent data. Gul and Shah (2014) further summarize the issues with vendor-produced reports found in previous studies: “… due to varied definitions of data elements, varied implementation procedures and absence of a monitoring agency; they were mostly incompatible and could not be consolidated” (p. 193).

  In the meantime, various national and international organizations of the library and information community have taken the initiative to standardize usage reports. One of the earliest collaborated efforts was the development of the guidelines for usage reporting by International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) in the late 1990s. The guidelines “clarified expectations for terminology to use and what statistics to provide.” Despite the ICOLC timeliness of reports, remained problematic issues with vendor-provided usage reports (Gul & Shah, 2014; Pesch, 2007).

  Project COUNTER was started in 2002 by a group of librarians, publishers, and vendors who collaborated to create the first Code of Practice. COUNTER Release 1, made available in 2003, became the standards for publishers and vendors of electronic resources to provide usage statistics to their customers. The objective of COUNTER is “[t]o develop a single, international, extendible Code of Practice that allows the usage of online information to be measured in a credible, consistent and compatible way using vendor-generated data” (The

  

COUNTER Code of Practice – Release 1 , 2003, Slide 4). Subsequent releases

  have incorporated changes and suggestions for improvement recommended by users. The current version of the Code of Practice, Release 4 was made available in March 2012 and fully implemented by January 2014. Project COUNTER anticipates that Release 5 will be made available in 2017 and effective in 2019.

  What Is The COUNTER Code of Practice?

The COUNTER Code of Practice, Release 4 (2012) is a set of international

  standards that facilitate the process of recording, exchanging, and interpreting online usage data. The document includes the following sections:

  1. General Information,

  2. Definitions of Terms Used,

  3. SUSHI,

  4. Usage Reports,

  5. Data Processing,

  6. Auditing,

  7. Compliance,

  8. Maintenance and Development of the Code of Practice, and 9. Appendices.

  The “General Information” section describes the COUNTER general provisions, such as purpose, scope, application, strategy, governance, definitions, versions, auditing, and COUNTER compliance. The purpose and functions of the Code of Practice are summarized as following:

  

The COUNTER Code of Practice provides guidance on data elements to be

measured, definitions of these data elements, output report content and format,

as well as on data processing and auditing. To have their usage statistics

and reports designated COUNTER compliant, vendors must provide usage

statistics that conform to the Code of Practice.

The purpose of the COUNTER Code of Practice is to facilitate the recording,

exchange and interpretation of online usage data by establishing open,

  

international standards and protocols for the provision of vendor-generated

usage statistics that are consistent, credible and compatible. (p. 3)

  The section of “Definitions of the terms used” refers to “Appendix A,” which is a list of terms relevant to the current release. “Appendix A” is essential to understand the COUNTER terminology.

  The section of “SUSHI” (Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative) describes the relationship between the COUNTER standards and SUSHI protocol. While SUSHI automates the retrieval of COUNTER usage reports, for this to happen COUNTER reports must be provided in the SUSHI-specified XML schema.

  A list of COUNTER usage reports is provided under “Usage Reports.” This section specifies the content, format, and delivery of COUNTER reports, with examples. To be COUNTER-compliant a vendor must follow these specifications.

  The “Data Processing” section specifies the requirements for collecting relevant data, where only intended usage should be counted. These include various filters to clean up data and provisions to “mitigate the inflationary effects of federated searches, internet robots and search-engine prefetching on the reported usage statistics.” The section describes logfile analysis and page tagging as two examples of various data generating approaches. However, “COUNTER does not prescribe which approach should be taken” (p. 24).

  The next two sections address COUNTER Auditing and Compliance. All COUNTER compliant vendors “must be independently audited on a regular basis in order to maintain their COUNTER compliant status.” Also, vendors must apply for COUNTER-compliant status. The section of “Compliance” details the procedures on how to achieve this status. Meanwhile COUNTER maintains a registry of COUNTER-compliant vendors and their available COUNTER reports.

  The Code of Practice is a document of standards in progress. The section on maintenance and development describes the responsibilities and collaboration of the COUNTER communities in further improvement of the Code.

  In conjunction with the main sections of the Code of Practice are “Appendices.” Most of them concern the implementation of COUNTER standards, such as the following:

  1. Glossary of terms relevant to COUNTER,

  2. Vendor declaration of COUNTER compliance,

  3. SUSHI,

  4. Guidelines for implementation,

  5. Auditing requirements and tests,

  6. Excel usage reports examples, and 7. XML overview, with links to the up to date schemas.

  The COUNTER Code of Practice is a monumental achievement in the

  standardization of vendor-produced usage data. The COUNTER requirements for generating consistent, credible, and comparable data make the COUNTER usage reports more useful, meaningful, and relevant to users. Absent COUNTER standards, vendors and publishers would be free to provide usage data in whatever format and categories they choose. Instead, COUNTER requires content providers to follow the established Code of Practice that has originated from the feedback of stakeholders throughout the process of developing and improving COUNTER standards. Librarians’ experiences with usage data have shaped the standards and will continue to do so as future releases occur.

  Who Will COUNTER Benefit?

  For librarians who have struggled with managing usage data, Project COUNTER provides a much needed framework for standardization and organization of data and usage reports. COUNTER also benefits vendors and publishers by providing very specific guidelines for types of data and instructions for how data should be reported. Per Code of Practice, Release 4, COUNTER standards should:

  

… enable librarians to compare statistics from different vendors, to make

better-informed purchasing decisions, and to plan infrastructure more

effectively. COUNTER also provides vendors/intermediaries with the detailed

specifications they need to generate data in a format useful to customers, to

compare the relative usage of different delivery channels, and to learn more

about online usage patterns. (p. 3)

  Gul and Shah (2014) point out the intended benefits of COUNTER in their study on the COUNTER Codes and vendor practices. With the aid of COUNTER reports librarians are able to compare usage statistics from different vendors; derive useful metrics such as cost-per- use; make better-informed purchasing decisions; and plan infrastructure more effectively. Publishers and intermediaries are able to: provide data to customers in a format they want; compare the relative usage of different delivery channels; aggregate data for customers using multiple delivery channels; and learn more about genuine usage patterns.

  The impact of COUNTER is significant, as the standardization of usage data drives vendors to provide consistent and reliable reports and allows librarians to assess their collections accurately and in a meaningful way.

  CONCLUSION

  Usage data serves an important purpose for librarians who need to assess user activities with electronic collections. COUNTER benefits this process by providing standards for vendors and publishers to follow in delivering usage data to libraries. COUNTER aims for usage data to be credible, consistent, and comparable, three core principles in standardizing data. For librarians who are not familiar with usage reports, the abundance of data available from vendors can be overwhelming, especially since vendors now may provide both COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports. Understanding COUNTER principles and how COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports relate to each other are important steps in sorting out relevant data.

  This book seeks to guide readers through the types of vendor reports available for e-books usage, to examine potential areas of confusion, and to provide strategies for interpreting e-books usage data. Beginning with COUNTER, readers will be introduced to the types of reports available for e-books usage and how they are implemented. Then, in a three-part case study, readers will see the results of one academic library’s analysis of COUNTER and non-COUNTER e-books usage reports from three vendors, including EBSCO, ebrary, and Safari. Specifically, the case study will examine which COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports are available from each vendor, whether usage reports can be compared, and how the different types of reports can be analyzed. Finally, this book will attempt to consolidate vendor-provided broader and more meaningful context.

  REFERENCES

  Gul, S., & Shah, T. A. (2014). COUNTER codes and practices of vendors: What they say and what they do not say. The Serials Librarian, 67(2), 191–210. Pesch, O. (2007). Usage statistics: About COUNTER and SUSHI. Information Services & Use , 27(4), 207–213.

  The COUNTER code of practice for e-resources: Release 4. (2012). Retrieved fr The COUNTER Code of Practice – Release 1 [Power Point]. (2003). Retrieved fr

  10 Chapter 2 COUNTER:

  

Standardization of E-Books Statistics

ABSTRACT

Until more recently, COUNTER reports were predominantly used by content

providers and consumers of electronic journals and databases. One of the

most significant developments with COUNTER Release 4 is that it integrated

book reports as part of the latest COUNTER Code of Practice. Release

4 makes it possible for academic libraries to assess e-books usage in a

consistent, credible, and comparable manner. However, in implementing the

COUNTER standards for book usage reporting, the variant practices among

e-book vendors impose challenges for librarians to correctly interpret vendor

COUNTER reports. Therefore, it is crucial for librarians to consult the Code

of Practice and COUNTER implementation guidelines in order to better

understand COUNTER reports by individual vendors. Chapter 2 discusses

each COUNTER standard report for e-book usage data, pointing to potential

issues as they have been implemented by e-books vendors.

  INTRODUCTION

  The success of COUNTER standards is evident from its wide implementation by vendors and publishers and the abundant COUNTER literature since its conception. However, until more recently, COUNTER reports were predominantly used by content providers and consumers of electronic journals and databases. The COUNTER reports for e-books were not implemented by

  DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-3238-5.ch002 most vendors until The COUNTER Code of Practice, Release 4 (2012). For example, ebrary, one of the major e-books vendors, only started providing COUNTER reports in late 2013.

  One of the most significant developments with Release 4 is that it integrated the book reports as part of the latest COUNTER Code of Practice. “Release 4 of the Code of Practice replaces both Release 3 of the Code of Practice for Journals and Databases and Release 1 of the Code of Practice for Books and Reference Works” (p. 3). For librarians, the availability of these additional COUNTER reports provides the opportunity for assessment of electronic book usage in a standardized way.

COUNTER USAGE REPORTS FOR E-BOOKS

  Release 4 of the Code of Practice lists 36 usage reports, covering various types and formats of electronic resources. These COUNTER reports are categorized either as standard or optional reports. COUNTER requires that a vendor must provide standard reports in order to be COUNTER compliant. The COUNTER standard reports pertinent to e-books usage are Book Reports 1-5 and Platform Report 1.