Measurement of use and impact of electronic information services

1. Measurement of use and impact of electronic information services Dr Angela Conyers Evidence Base Birmingham City University angela.conyers@bcu.ac.uk

2. NESLi2 deals UK national deals negotiated by JISC Collections on behalf of the higher and further education communities • 17 major scholarly publishers • Libraries decide which deals to take up

3. Evidence Base • NESLi2 study for JISC Collections 2004-5 • Evidence Base Publisher Deal Project 2006-9 • Low and non take up of NESLi2 deals for JISC Collections 2007 • Assessing the value of the NESLi2 deals 2008 • Evidence Base individual library consultancy projects • JISC Journal Usage Statistics Portal (JUSP)

4. NESLi2 Study for JISC Collections • 4 NESLi2 publishers • 17 university libraries • Robust methodology developed • NESLi2 deals generally favourable -challenged some preconceptions! (http://www.ebase.bcu.ac.uk/docs/jiscnesli2summaryeb.pdf)

5. Evidence Base Publisher Deal Project • 20 university libraries • 10 NESLi2 publishers • Templates for detailed analysis including: Usage range, price band, subject category, subscribed and unsubscribed titles, trends over time, cost metrics….

6. Evidence Base Publisher Deal Project • Have greatly enjoyed being a part of this project, I have learnt so much and gained much confidence in report generating and presenting this to senior staff • We have found the project interesting and have enjoyed participating. It has certainly provided us with some new techniques to employ when conducting our own value for money analysis.

7. Low and non take up of NESLi2 Deals Survey of 121 university libraries Three key reasons for low take up: • not good value for money • deal not appropriate to our users • offers too complicated and time-consuming to work out

8. Assessing the value of the NESLi2 deals A guide to help libraries, especially smaller libraries, assess value before purchase and when deciding on renewal. http://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/Reports/Assessing-the-value-of-NESLi2/

9. What are we doing this for? Financial data • to inform purchasing decisions • to demonstrate that the deal offers good value for money Usage statistics • to inform renewal decisions • to demonstrate how the deal is being used

11. 2750 journals for the price of ????

12. Yield Method Yield provides a measure of the price per £ of acquiring additional unsubscribed titles Yield per £ = list price of unsubscribed titles e-access fee

13. Calculating Yield Three figures needed: • Costs of maintaining existing subscriptions: base price or content fee (the ‘subscribed titles’ cost) • Costs of e-access to all other titles in the deal (the ‘unsubscribed titles’ cost) • Cost of buying all the titles in the deal on the open market

14. Working out the yield Publisher deal X – 1,000 titles with a total list price of £250,000. E access fee £10,000 including VAT Library A – 100 subscribed titles at cost of £25,000 Yield per £ = £225,000 (£250,000 - £25,000) £10,000 = £22.50 For each £ of the e-access fee, the Library gets £22.50 worth of journals.

15. Cost per titleDeal with 1,000 titles

16. Average cost per request

17. Usage: subscribed and non-subscribed titles 50-75% of total requests have sometimes come from titles available in the deal to which the libraries did not previously have access

18. Looking at nil usage 1

19. Looking at nil usage 2

20. Library comments • Bundled deals are value for money – nil use is negligible; particularly when ‘unpriced’ titles are removed from the equation • Value for money: Cost/download ratio highlighted return on investment • Figures show substantial & sustained annual growth in usage

21. Adding extra data To measure the full value and impact of a deal, the following data needs to be combined with usage statistics: • List prices • Subscribed titles • Subject categories

22. Thank you Angela Conyers angela.conyers@bcu.ac.uk