[Eril-l] browzine thoughts?

[Geller, Marilyn]

The Lesley University Library adopted BrowZine early on, and we have been happily using it ever since.  Usage stats are nowhere near stats for other services, and I really wouldn't expect them to be.  BrowZine is used in a completely different way and for different reasons than our other services and platforms and content.  We have researcher using databases to search for content that immediately and directly addresses the narrow topic of the research they're doing.  And we have researchers using BrowZine to stay current in their chosen disciplines.  Those are really very different activities.

That said, I think our usage stats for BrowZine continue to grow every quarter, and while the numbers aren't the same as for databases, they are pretty awesome!  We think we've come up with the right groups to market to and the right ways to market it.  Here are some of our tips and tricks:

1. This is not a compelling app for undergraduates who haven't identified with a discipline yet.  People who want to stay current with certain journals are people who see themselves as part of that discipline or profession.  I cannot imagine a random undergraduate wanting to read College and Research Library News, but I do . . . religiously.  So our focus in marketing is on faculty and graduate students.  Occasionally we find an undergrad who knows the direction of his/her life and can take advantage of BrowZine to help establish a connection to the profession, but truly you have to know what your interest really is before you see the beauty of BrowZine.

2.  That brings me to how you market.  We started out demoing based on our own interests.  I would stand in front of a group of faculty and show them my bookshelf of library journals.  Ho hum, yawn!  One day, in front of a group of faculty, I wandered past an education title and someone said "Wait!  Stop! I read that journal all the time!"  Suddenly it made sense to the audience when they actually saw with their own eyes that they could get the journals they wanted.  I think there's a lot of technology fatigue out there, and no one wants to take on another techno-thingy unless they are certain they'll get something out of it.  Now, when we demo, we know ahead of time what disciplines to highlight or we ask right up front what journals the audience reads on a regular basis.

3. Be prepared for people to misunderstand it immediately and have it only slowly dawn on them what BrowZine is all about.  Potential users always seem to be looking for the box where they can enter their search terms.  I think it's because the web has trained us to "search" but not really browse in the same way we do in a physical library.  BrowZine is one of the first apps I've seen that addresses the browsing and serendipity aspect of the physical environment.  It takes a bit for that to sink in for users, and one way I try to help them along is to remind them of the physical pleasure of walking down an aisle of books and journals.  And then I point out the philodendron on top of the bookshelf.  "See, it's even got a potted plant on top of the bookshelf, just like in my office."  (FYI, that plant died a few years ago, but I don't say that.)

Recently, I spent time working with a grad student who told me she went out and bought a tablet because she just had to have BrowZine!

Hope this helps!

Marilyn Geller
Collection Management Librarian
Sherrill Library
Lesley University
617.349.8859 / marilyn.geller at lesley.edu<mailto:marilyn.geller at lesley.edu>
Please note new email address as of October 27, 2014
Profile: http://research.lesley.edu/profile.php?uid=5428
Research: http://ir.flo.org/lesley/viewResearcherPage.action?researcherId=2



From: Eril-l [mailto:eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org] On Behalf Of Swogger, Susan
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2015 7:13 PM
To: Harper, Cynthia; Leslie O'Brien; eril-l at lists.eril-l.org
Subject: Re: [Eril-l] browzine thoughts?

In order, your questions:

  *   No. It lets you view the table of contents and holdings for your journals, but you must be online. You can open an article to read online, or download it to save to your machine for later. Articles will let you email them, open them in other apps, save them, etc.
  *   If you open and download an article while online, you can easily secure it in a folder to read later. You do have to do your picking and pulling while online to be able to read the articles offline.
  *   The usage is counted as a normal download by journal vendors. It is not a double use. I'm not sure if it counts table of contents views in any way.
  *   No, it's for everything they can manage to get that you have subscribed via traditional subscription or aggregator, or that is open access. I am at a science library, and we definitely promote it far more as we pay for it on our campus, but I can see that a big chunk of the use is in the social sciences, arts, humanities, news, etc. About half of my personal bookshelf is cultural studies and ethics and art.

Does that help? You can get the app for free to see how it works - it will just be limited to open access journals. Anyone can use that. It's if you want your library's collection to be accessible that you have to pay.

Susan Swogger
Collections Development Librarian
Health Sciences Library
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
phone: (919) 966-0777
fax: (919) 966-1388
sswogger at email.unc.edu<mailto:sswogger at email.unc.edu>

www.hsl.unc.edu<http://www.hsl.unc.edu>
Connecting people everywhere with knowledge to improve health
________________________________
From: Eril-l [eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org] on behalf of Harper, Cynthia [charper at vts.edu]
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2015 4:41 PM
To: Leslie O'Brien; eril-l at lists.eril-l.org<mailto:eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
Subject: Re: [Eril-l] browzine thoughts?
Does it download whole journals? Otherwise, how is the content available for offline sessions? And does that affect your usage counts?  Is it only for the sciences (as the first webpage I found indicated)?

Cindy Harper
Virginia Theological Seminary
charper at vts.edu<mailto:charper at vts.edu>

From: Eril-l [mailto:eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org] On Behalf Of Leslie O'Brien
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2015 1:42 PM
To: eril-l at lists.eril-l.org<mailto:eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
Subject: Re: [Eril-l] browzine thoughts?

Virginia Tech has subscribed to Browzine since July 2014.  We added the web version to our subscription for the coming fiscal year.  We have 2,400 faculty and 29,000 students.  For the first 9 months we had 1,100 sessions and 2,300 full text downloads.  About 80% of the sessions were on iOS devices.  I hope we'll see usage grow over the next year.

Leslie O'Brien
Director of Collections & Technical Services
University Libraries
Virginia Tech

On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Steve Oberg <steve.oberg at wheaton.edu<mailto:steve.oberg at wheaton.edu>> wrote:
We renewed our subscription to the "regular" BrowZine just a few weeks ago; it was a new subscription for us last year. We decided to also subscribe to BrowZine web, an add-on product, in hopes that it will broaden the service's appeal and accessibility to our users.

Our stats thus far sound like yours - not great. However, whenever we talk about or demo it, the response is quite positive. I'm not sure why that is not (yet) translating into higher numbers. It may be due to some or all of the following factors (these are purely my own opinion):

  *   It's still a relatively new thing and our community can be slow to adopt new technologies and services
  *   I'm not sure the service will ever broadly appeal to undergrads and we are a predominantly undergrad institution
  *   Existing habits of faculty and perhaps grad students for keeping current in subject areas is probably deeply ingrained
  *   We need to take every opportunity to promote the service, and to show our users how to use it
In sum, I think it is a great service, a great idea, but it will take some time to really get traction among our users. We hope the web version will help.

Steve

Steve Oberg<http://www.wheaton.edu/Academics/Faculty/O/Steve-Oberg>
Assistant Professor of Library Science
Electronic Resources and Serials
Wheaton College (IL)
+1 (630) 752-5852<tel:%2B1%20%28630%29%20752-5852>

From: Amy Lynn Fry
Date: Thursday, May 14, 2015 at 10:33 AM
To: "eril-l at lists.eril-l.org<mailto:eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>"
Subject: [Eril-l] browzine thoughts?

Anyone out there have thoughts on BrowZine? Is anyone signing up for BrowZine web?

Our use of BrowZine is not awesome. Does anyone have awesome usage or ideas about increasing usage?

We currently only have it for iOS.

Thanks,
Amy

Amy Fry
Associate Professor, Electronic Resources Coordinator
Bowling Green State University
Jerome Library
Bowling Green, OH 43403
afry at bgsu.edu<mailto:afry at bgsu.edu>
email is the best way to reach me


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