Measuring the validity of usage reports provided by e book vendors emerging research and opportunities

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 li

Measuring the Validity of Usage Reports Provided

Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, USA

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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

Subjects: LCSH: Libraries Special collections Electronic books |

Electronic books Use studies | COUNTER (Organization) | Acquisition of

electronic information resources | Collection management

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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

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

Pesch, O (2011) Perfecting COUNTER and SUSHI to achieve reliable

usage analysis The Serials Librarian, 61(3-4), 353–365 doi:10.1080/0361

526X.2011.617294

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

Chapter 1

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

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.

What Is COUNTER and

Why Is It Important?

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 findings resulting from this case study

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 guidelines, inconsistencies in counting, format, and delivery, as well as 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:

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 usage reports and find opportunities for interpreting e-books usage data in a broader and more meaningful context

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

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

COUNTER:

Standardization of E-Books Statistics

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

Book Report 1 (BR1) provides the number of successful title requests by month and title The report lists individual book titles with associated usage statistics, as well as identification information, such as Publisher, ISBN, Book DOI, and Proprietary Identifier This report informs customers how many titles were requested, and how many times and in which month(s) they were requested By specifying individual titles, it also provides insight into what titles were accessed by the user BR1 is to be provided only if a vendor delivers an entire e-book in a single file

If a vendor provides an e-book in multiple files, then Book Report 2 (BR2) should be used instead BR2 contains the exact same data categories as BR1

The only difference between the two reports is that BR1 counts at the title level while BR2 measures usage at the section level The Code of Practice defines section as “[t]he first level of subdivision of a book or reference work.” The

BR2 report includes individual titles and number of section requests for each title, although it does not specify what particular sections were requested.Book Report 3 (BR3) contains the exact same data categories as BR1 and BR2, except that instead of successful requests, it counts the number

of accesses denied (also called “turnaways”) The Access Denied Category

column in BR3 lists causes for denial such as “concurrent user license limit

exceeded” or “content item not licensed.” Although BR3 does not present usage per se, the turnaway statistics help inform librarians of unsatisfied needs

of their constituents or possible gaps in their libraries’ collections BR3 is to

be used where accesses are denied at the title level

If turnaways occur at the platform level, the standard COUNTER report

is Book Report 4 (BR4) No individual titles are provided in this report One may interpret the actual difference between BR3 and BR4 in a more concrete way: the former accounts for situations where the end user can retrieve hits but is denied access to the content of certain titles, while the latter is used for cases where the user is denied any successful return because access is turned away at the platform or database level

Book Report 5 (BR5) provides total searches by month and title Per Code

of Practice, BR5 is “to be supplied only for those titles where searches and sessions can be counted at the title level.” BR5 contains individual titles and search statistics associated with each title The type of searches is specified

in the “User Activity” column, and should distinguish between regular and federated searches This report “highlights different ways in which users may

engage with e-book content on a publisher platform” (Librarians’ questions answered, 2016).

Besides the book reports, another standard COUNTER usage report required

of e-books vendors is Platform Report 1 (PR1) This report provides total searches, result clicks, and record views by month and platform “Platform”

is defined by the Code of Practice as “an interface from an Aggregator, Host, Publisher or Service that delivers the content to the user and that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.” The difference between PR1 and BR5 is that the former counts searches on the vendor platform and the latter totals the number of times when a user searches within the contents of

an e-book In PR1, the User Activity column contains numbers of searches

(including regular and federated searches), result clicks, and record views.

Table 1 below is an overview of the data categories in Book Reports 1-5 and Platform Report 1

BR1, BR2, BR3, and BR5 provide usage data associated with individual titles The four book reports contain the exact same categories of title and other book identification data (such as Book DOI, Proprietary Identifier, ISBN, etc.), although each report provides a different type of usage statistics BR4 and PR1 are platform usage reports Therefore, they do not include individual titles or title information Instead, the statistics are associated

with platform and/or publishers All the standard reports include Platform, Publisher, Reporting Period Total, and the individual months within the reporting period.

In addition to Book Reports 1-5, an optional report is Book Report 7 The purpose of this report is to reconcile BR1 and BR2, allowing for comparable usage of e-books regardless of the hosting site and unit of delivery by providing

a count of unique accesses to an e-book during a session This report counts unique titles only once, regardless of pages or chapters that are downloaded

during a session (The COUNTER Code of Practice Release 4, 2012) Book

Report 7 appears to fill a gap in Release 4 standard COUNTER reports The

Table 1 Data categories in book reports 1-5 and platform report 1

Number of

Successful

Title Requests by

Month and

Title

Book Report 2:

Number of Successful Section Requests by Month and Title

Book Report 3:

Access Denied to Content Items by Month, Title and Category

Book Report 4:

Access Denied to Content Items by Month, Platform and Category

Book Report 5:

Total Searches by Month and Title

Platform Report 1: Total Searches, Result Clicks and Record Views by Month and Platform

option to see usage by title regardless of how many or what types of sections were accessed is unique from the standard COUNTER book reports.

COUNTER REPORTS FORMAT AND DISPLAY RULES

The Code of Practice provides very detailed rules for the display and formatting

of COUNTER usage reports It mandates that a vendor “must comply exactly with the formats specified to be COUNTER compliant” (p 6)

A COUNTER report in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet format should illustrate exactly what cell of the spreadsheet contains what textual information For example, cell A1 of the spreadsheet should contain the report name; cell B1

is for the description of the report; name of customer (institution that receives the report) should be identified in cell A2; and so on How statistical data are to be populated is also clearly defined For example:

There must be a column for every month that falls within the Reporting Period covered by the report Where recorded usage is zero in a given month ‘0’ must

be included in the relevant cells Where usage has not yet been recorded for

a given month the relevant cells must be left blank (p 8)

For delivery of the book reports, COUNTER requires vendors to follow the standards specified for all standard COUNTER reports For instance, reports must be delivered either as a “Microsoft Excel file or as a Tab Separated, other structured text file” or as “XML formatted in accordance with COUNTER scheme.” COUNTER expects vendors to make all their reports available in XML for harvesting via the SUSHI protocol Besides formatting, each report should be contained in a separate file to avoid size limitations All reports must allow the customer the flexibility to specify a monthly date range

IMPLEMENTATION OF COUNTER

STANDARD BOOK REPORTS

COUNTER standards ensure that usage reports from different vendors contain the same data elements and consistent formatting and display These requirements make it possible for librarians to compare usage between vendors who provide the same COUNTER book report The examples below in Figure

1 and Figure 2 illustrate COUNTER Book Report 2 from two different vendors

The two reports contain the exact same data elements – although these may not be displayed in the exact same order Despite the slight variation in layout, one can easily compare the same category of usage data, such as the highest or lowest number of requests per title, usage in a particular month, or the usage pattern over certain months This contrasts with non-COUNTER reports where different vendors provide reports in very different formats.Since COUNTER Release 4, major e-book vendors have implemented COUNTER standards and made COUNTER book reports available to their customers The number of COUNTER compliant vendors continues to grow

As of August 2016, over one hundred content providers have passed the audit for COUNTER-compliance Over 60% of them were able to provide COUNTER standard e-book usage reports (COUNTER, 2016)

Figure 1 Ebrary book report 2

Figure 2 Safari book report 2

While more vendors are offering COUNTER reports for e-books, the COUNTER implementation also presents some challenges First, COUNTER-compliant vendors are required to provide COUNTER standard reports

“depending on the content covered” (The COUNTER Code of Practice Release

4, 2012) In regard to “content,” the COUNTER implementation guidelines

in the Code of Practice further explain:

Release 4 of the COUNTER Code specifically covers journals, databases, books/reference works and multimedia content Each of these important categories of content has its own group of usage reports, which are listed

in Section 4 of the Code of Practice It is recognized, however, that while these categories cover a large proportion of the online content purchased by librarians and library consortia, they do not cover everything The COUNTER Usage Reports are, however, sufficiently flexible to allow other categories

of content to be covered (Appendix D)

In other words, COUNTER does not specify more nuanced content categories, such as newspapers, reports, and audiovisual resources A vendor should choose a COUNTER report for a broader category

However, it is not entirely clear whether a vendor must provide all standard usage reports for a particular format Based on the Auditing requirements and tests in “Appendix E” of the Code of Practice, e-books vendors are not

required to provide all COUNTER standard e-book usage reports (BR1-BR5 and PR1) to be COUNTER-compliant:

3 Vendors reporting usage of books and reference works must, as a minimum, provide, and have audited, the following reports:

a Either Book Report 1 OR Book Report 2.

b Book Report 3 OR Book Report 4.

c Book Report 5 OR Platform Report 1.

This also implies that not all vendors will be able to deliver all book reports Therefore, instead of providing all standard book reports a vendor may choose the ones that fit its platform and method of delivery In reality, not all COUNTER standard reports are available from all COUNTER-compliant vendors To their customers this means it may not be possible to compare usage across vendors For librarians, this limits the perspective of e-books usage to individual vendors Despite the goal of consistent and compatible measurement of usage data with COUNTER reports, librarians may still end

Considering the choices offered to vendors for which standard book reports they supply, it is uncertain how effective the alternatives will be because they are not quite the same Taking the “BR1 or BR2” alternative

as an example: COUNTER makes it clear that the distinction between BR1 and BR2 is the content level of the resource being accessed, i.e whether a successful request concerns a whole book or only a section of the book As result, the BR1 and BR2 statistics reflect different counting units An “apple

to apple” comparison would require a conversion between the numbers of titles and sections

COUNTER mandates that the Section Type be indicated in the report itself, but leaves it to the vendor/publisher’s discretion to specify the section type For librarians, a potential challenge is that different vendors may define section type differently, especially as there is no restriction for what section type a vendor may include in BR2 The Code of Practice further instructs that

if there are multiple types of sections covered in BR2, the vendor should list the predominant type Therefore, librarians should note the possibility that a

BR2 report may have multiple section types even when only one is indicated.

The COUNTER standards community was aware that the COUNTER guidelines for BR2 “section” may have multiple implications for the implementation of BR2 by individual vendors A librarians’ questions and answer page posted on the COUNTER website (“Librarians questions answered”) includes the following information regarding BR2:

Different publishers define sections in different ways – as chapters, parts, units, etc This is because the way books are divided for use and download varies …

As the majority of publisher sites present e-book content at a ‘section’ level (e.g providing book chapters or encyclopedia entries in individual files), COUNTER Book Report 2 (BR2) can be applied to run more relevant usage metrics.

In addition to different publishers defining sections in different ways, reports may not accurately reflect the type of section included One other concern raised by the library community about BR2 was that the potential broadening of the definition by vendors may “artificially inflate the number

of section requests” (Osterman, Pesch, & Schmidt, 2016)

Likewise, the implementation of BR3 and BR4 can be challenging both for vendors and librarians The fact that BR4 is presented as an alternative to BR3 reveals a complex issue with subscription-based electronic resources The different levels of and causes for access denial are due to varying subscription terms and vendor platform set up For COUNTER-compliance, a vendor is required to deliver one of the reports, not both, although BR3 and BR4 can

be both valuable to the customer

BR5 accounts for a growing reality that more and more e-book vendors provide the option to search within the contents of an e-book This report contributes to the statistics that reveal the extent of an individual e-book usage Although BR5 is hardly an alternative to PR1, as it counts entirely different usage, the latter is offered as a standard COUNTER report in addition to BR5 for measuring e-book search statistics, because most searches occur

on a vendor platform In PR1, regular and federated searches are counted separately A result click is counted when a user clicks on a set of results While the count of result clicks seems intuitive, the count of record views can

be ambiguous without explanation The Code of Practice defines record view

as “a successful request for a database record that has originated from a set of search results, from browsing the database, or from a click on another database record.” It should be noted that PR1, although applicable to e-books format,

is a database usage report and designed for databases of all content types

CONCLUSION

COUNTER Release 4 has reached a milestone by widely implementing COUNTER standards in the e-books community, which 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 may 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

COUNTER (2016) Retrieved from https://www.projectcounter.org/

Librarians Questions Answered (2016) Retrieved from https://www.projectcounter.org/librarians-questions-answered/

Osterman, A., Pesch, O., & Schmidt, K (2016) Introduction to Usus, a

community website on library usage, and a discussion about COUNTER 4 The Serials Librarian, 70(1-4), 211–216 doi:10.1080/0361526X.2016.1147880

The COUNTER code of practice for e-resources: Release 4 (2012) Retrieved from http://beta.projectcounter.org/r4/COPR4.pdf

in the COUNTER reports they implement, all three vendors supply their customers with essential COUNTER data on e-books usage, i.e the numbers

of successful requests, turnaways, and searches In addition to the COUNTER reports, they all provide non-COUNTER reports to their customers Although the number of non-COUNTER reports vary widely among ebrary, EBSCO, and Safari, all three vendors provide abundant and unique usage data.

Case Study Part 1:

Sorting Out the Data Mess

This case study involves a medium-sized academic library that holds about 350,000 print volumes and 200,000 electronic books The library has been acquiring e-books primarily through large subscriptions and purchased packages from three major vendors – ebrary (Academic Complete), EBSCO (EBSCOHost eBook Collection), and Safari (Safari Books Online) All three vendors have joined the COUNTER membership and been registered as COUNTER-compliant The usage reports discussed throughout the case study were retrieved from each vendor for the academic year of July 2015–June

2016, and include COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports

COUNTER REPORTS BY VENDOR

According to the “Usage Reports” section of the COUNTER Code of Practice Release 4, vendors must supply the relevant COUNTER-compliant usage

reports for their products The COUNTER website (2016) FAQ page provides the following guidance to vendors for how to become COUNTER compliant:

“Some of the usage reports are obligatory for COUNTER compliance; these are listed as ‘standard’ in this guide However, only the ‘standard’ reports which are relevant to the categories of content that you publish are required for COUNTER compliance.” The Code of Practice lists the names of usage reports and indicates the status of each as either standard or optional

The Friendly Guide to COUNTER, a manual to assist publishers and

vendors with implementing COUNTER, explains that categories of content determine which reports they should deliver The Guide uses this example:

“If you publish full-text journals but no books or databases, then you need to supply the ‘standard’ set of journal reports, but no book or database reports” (Mellins-Cohen, 2016, p 8) This suggests that vendors should supply the standard reports for the category of content they publish However, as reviewed

in Chapter 2, COUNTER only requires e-book vendors to implement either BR1 or BR2, BR3 or BR4, and BR5 or PR1 The reason COUNTER gives e-book providers choices is that unlike journals and databases, where “Articles”

as units can be counted consistently across vendors, e-books are structured and delivered in a variety of ways This makes it very challenging to design

the same book reports for all vendors (Shepherd, 2006) In this case study, none of the three vendors has the complete COUNTER Book Reports 1-5.

• Only Safari provides Book Report 4 (Access Denied to Content Items

by Month, Platform and Category)

• Book Report 5, Total Searches by Month and Title, is provided only

by ebrary

• All three vendors provide Platform Report 1 (Total Searches, Result Clicks, and Record Views by Month and Platform)

NON-COUNTER REPORTS BY VENDOR

While Table 1 shows the COUNTER standard reports provided by each of the three vendors, vendor custom reports, referred to here as “non-COUNTER” reports, are also available According to “Appendix D, Guidelines for Implementation” of the Code of Practice, vendors may provide additional reports based on COUNTER data in response to customer needs For example,

in title-level reports, a vendor might offer Library of Congress or Dewey call numbers, data not provided in standard COUNTER reports

Non-COUNTER reports are optional so the number of reports offered by each vendor varies widely Also, not all non-COUNTER reports produce data for every library In many cases, which non-COUNTER reports are relevant

Table 1 COUNTER standard reports available by vendor

Vendor

Book Platform Report 1 Report 2 Report 3 Report 4 Report 5 Report 1 ebrary No Yes Yes No Yes Yes

EBSCO Yes Yes Yes No No Yes

Safari No Yes No Yes No Yes

to individual libraries depends on their subscription terms and collections For example, for this library, Figure 1 reveals that EBSCO provides the fewest non-COUNTER reports (1), while Safari provides the most (24) of the three vendors in this case study While EBSCO’s “Standard Report” does not reveal in the report name what data it contains, ebrary’s report names, such as “Title” and “Site Activity,” are more specific Safari is most specific

in its naming of reports, and clearly indicates unique, non-COUNTER data such as “Search Terms” and “Books Added.”

COUNTER USAGE DATA BY VENDOR

The data covered in the standard Book Reports 1-5 and Platform Report 1 can be grouped into:

1 Successful requests,

2 Turnaways, and

Figure 1 Non-COUNTER reports available by vendor

3 Searches.

Table 2 shows the type and level of data in the COUNTER reports provided

by each vendor In this case study, all three vendors provide data on successful requests, either at the title and/or section level Additionally, all three vendors provide total numbers of turnaways, either at the title or platform level It should be noted that while ebrary provides BR3, the report produced for this case study contains no data It is unclear whether the empty report is indeed due to the fact that there were no turnaways during the academic year

of 2015/2016, or if the lack of data is because the subscription terms do not limit the number of simultaneous users

All three vendors provide statistics on search activities on vendor platforms Both Safari and EBSCO’s PR1 contain complete elements of usage data

as specified by COUNTER: searches, result clicks, and record views By comparison, ebrary’s PR1 contains statistics on regular searches and result clicks only It does not include the data on record views However, ebrary

is the only vendor who provides statistics on searches within individual e-books (BR5)

It is important to note that the scope of EBSCO’s PR1 is different from that

of ebrary and Safari as it reports usage for the entire EBSCO platform and

is not limited to e-book usage By design, COUNTER PR1 reports on user search activities on a vendor platform, which can cover a single or multiple databases Ebrary and Safari are exclusively e-book vendors and thus their platforms are homogeneous e-book platforms By contrast, the EBSCO platform, “EBSCOHost,” holds a large number of multi-format databases, meaning it counts searches for more than just e-books As a result, librarians looking for e-books usage should note that while PR1 can be consulted for

Table 2 Data categories by vendor

Vendor/

Data Category Ebrary EBSCO Safari

Successful requests Yes—

Section Level (BR2)

Turnaways Yes—

Title Level (BR3)

Yes—

Title Level (BR3)

Yes—

Platform Level (BR4)

Search activities Yes—

Title & Platform Level (BR5 & PR1)

Yes—

Platform Level (PR1)

Yes—

Platform Level (PR1)

some vendors, such as ebrary and Safari, PR1 should not be used when the vendor platform includes additional formats, such as EBSCO.

Below is a summary of COUNTER data supplied by ebrary, EBSCO, and Safari:

• Ebrary:

◦ Successful requests, at section level (BR2)

◦ Turnaways at title level (BR3) but the report produces no data ◦ Search activities both at title and platform level (BR5 and PR1)

• EBSCO:

◦ Successful requests, both at title level (BR1) and section level (BR2)

◦ Turnaways at title level (BR3)

◦ Search activities at platform level (PR1) but not limited to e-book usage

• Safari:

◦ Successful request, at section level (BR2)

◦ Turnaways at platform level (BR4)

◦ Search activities at platform level (PR1)

Among the three vendors, only Safari provides relevant e-book usage data for all three categories (successful requests, turnaways, and searches) It is important to note that a vendor can be considered COUNTER compliant even

if it does not provide a major category of usage statistics such as searches

The latest COUNTER vendor registry shows that less than 30% of e-book vendors provide statistical data on e-book search activities on the vendor platform (PR1); and only about 8% offer statistics on e-book searches at the title level (BR5) (COUNTER, 2016)

NON-COUNTER USAGE DATA BY VENDOR

Non-COUNTER reports are not standardized, so the comparison of data categories offered by each vendor can be challenging The reports in this case study do reveal commonalities, though not necessarily among all three vendors For example, ebrary and EBSCO provide the following categories

of data in at least one of their non-COUNTER reports:

1 Year,

Though finding common types of data across vendors is more challenging with non-COUNTER reports, the unique data offered by each are interesting

to observe In many cases librarians simply want to see a larger perspective

of usage for a particular vendor, rather than comparing usage across vendors

Non-COUNTER reports can provide the supplemental data that fills this need Furthermore, the type of data offered by each vendor varies Figure 2

Figure 2 Unique data categories by vendor

reveals that each vendor offers distinctive data categories not provided by the other two.

Examples of the unique data each vendor has to offer:

• EBSCO is the only vendor to provide usage for full text, including PDF, eBook, HTML, and total

• Ebrary is the only vendor to offer Dewey and Library of Congress call number data

• Safari is the only vendor to track actual search terms and the number of times terms were searched

Of the three vendors, Safari seems to provide the most categories of unique user data, particularly at the title level A closer look at the categories reveals the potential for very interesting information, such as the total number of hits and users by title, or the number of hits by title and date This unique information seems to provide a more in-depth picture of usage, as it reveals user activities not tracked in COUNTER reports The distinctive data offered

by each vendor makes it difficult to compare, but the non-COUNTER reports can be valuable for the additional information they provide

POSSIBLE QUESTIONS WITH VENDOR

COUNTER REPORTS

Examination of the usage reports generated for this case study reveals that most of the data categories in the COUNTER reports are consistent across the vendors Nonetheless discrepancies in data definitions and completeness

of data elements in each vendor’s COUNTER reports might raise questions for librarians trying to interpret usage reports While specific examples will

be explored in Chapter 4, general observations and potential questions for each vendor are noted here: