Presentation held at EAHIL 2012 in Brussels on problems with analyzing and comparing ebook usage statistics.

1. Everything that‟s wrong with
e-book statistics
A COMPARISON OF FOUR MEDICAL
E-BOOK PACKAGES
KARIN BYSTRÖM
UPPSALA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
UPPSALA, SWEDEN
@karinbystrom

2. Usage statistics
Statistics is like LEGO

3. Usage statistics
Statistics is like LEGO

4. Use of e-book statistics
 Why?
 Renewals and comparing packages
 Establish value for money
 What?
 Downloads per year /package
 Downloads per title
 Cost per download
 How
 Collecting
 Analyzing
 Comparing

5. Why doesn‟t it work?
 No definition of a ”download”
 Title
 Chapter
 Page
 Table
 Video
 Etc.

6. COUNTER code of practice
Standard for e-book statistics
 Book report 1: title level
 Book report 2: section level
 ” The first level of subdivision of a book or reference work.”
 Ex. chapter or encyclopedia entry

7. Uppsala university usage statistics

8. Books@Ovid
 Counter compliant
 Book report 1
 Title level
 A download is ”how
many full-text views are
logged for each [… ] book
that your institution
subscribes to.”

9. Thieme
 Counter compliant
 Book report 2
 Page level
 A download is ” For the
Thieme E-Book Library a
section comes down to a
single page.”

10. Medicines Complete
 Counter compliant
 Book report 2
 Title level
 A download is ”When we
refer to „section‟ we are
referring to title level.”

11. AccessMedicine
 Not Counter compliant
 A download is ”chapters
and sections of
subscribed resources, as
well as updates, Grand
Round lectures and Self-
assessment.”

12. Uppsala university usage statistics

13. Downloads per title
 Impossible to compare title, page and ”web content”
 No comparable downloads per title
350 50 40 12

14. Cost per download
 Impossible to compare title, page and ”web content”
 No comparable cost per download
EURO 1890 10620 5540 5460

15. I need a break!!
Help is on the way…

16. COUNTER
Code of Practice for e-resources
 Release 4, April 2012
 Still two Book Reports, still no standard definition of
“section”
 Clarification of ”section” in Book report 2
 “The Section Type (Chapter, encyclopaedia entry, etc.) used in
this report must be indicated in the report itself”
 Vendors have until December 2013 to comply

17. Libraries and statistics
 Raise awareness among librarians
 Explain our needs and demands to vendors
 New metrics for evaluation?

18. What do we want to build?
Thank you!