[Eril-l] Cost per use from COUNTER 5 Ebook reports

[Fry, Amy]

In my experience, the numbers for unique title requests and total requests are very similar - unless they aren't. If you look at the numbers month by month, they mostly correlate and then sometimes there will be one month where there's WAY more in total, and I'm not quite sure why.

I think Cynthia is correct, that the way it counts unique uses is not precise enough to make that much difference. I don't think unique would be like a print circulation - I wouldn't compare those numbers directly for sure. I have usually gone with total, myself, assuming a use is a use, whether it's by the same person or not.

I think this is one of the things that makes COUNTER 5 so confusing - instead of clearing up confusion, the additional data just creates more questions and makes me not sure what to think.

I think as long as you're consistent in which count you use, and don't try to compare the numbers to COUNTER 4, then you're doing the best you can.

I like to see how many titles are used, myself, and maybe how many months they got used. Neither of those are official COUNTER numbers, but I think they give me a better picture of how the ebooks are doing (compared to other ebooks) and how likely they are to be used again than how many item requests one book gets in one year, given how weird that number can be.

Amy Fry
Associate Professor, E-Resources Management Librarian
Acquisitions & Cataloging Services
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
217.265.9480
amyfry at illinois.edu<mailto:amyfry at illinois.edu>
https://experts.illinois.edu/en/persons/amy-lynn-fry

From: Eril-l <eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org> On Behalf Of Harper, Cynthia
Sent: Monday, November 8, 2021 2:39 PM
To: Sarah Glasser <Sarah.Glasser at hofstra.edu>; eril-l at lists.eril-l.org
Subject: Re: [Eril-l] Cost per use from COUNTER 5 Ebook reports

But none of the COUNTER 5 metrics can show that person A used Ebook X for 5 sessions, and person B used it over 8 different sessions, and count that as 2 uses, correct?

Thanks,
Cindy

From: Sarah Glasser <Sarah.Glasser at hofstra.edu<mailto:Sarah.Glasser at hofstra.edu>>
Sent: Monday, November 8, 2021 3:22 PM
To: Harper, Cynthia <charper at vts.edu<mailto:charper at vts.edu>>; eril-l at lists.eril-l.org<mailto:eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
Subject: RE: Cost per use from COUNTER 5 Ebook reports

Hi Cindy,

At my library we decided to use the metric Unique_Title_Request for e-books because it is more in line with a print book circulation (i.e. a use of the book regardless of whether the patron used one or ten chapters). I think the unique-item-requests counts chapter/section use (the "item" can be either an entire book or a chapter).  On page 10 of the Friendly COUNTER 5 guide for books (attached - not sure attachment will come through distribution list but sending to your email too), it suggests using the Unique_Title_Request for calculating cost per usage.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Sally
**************************************
Sarah (Sally) Glasser
Serials and E-Resources Librarian
Axinn Library-Hofstra University
Hempstead, NY  11549
From: Eril-l <eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org<mailto:eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org>> On Behalf Of Harper, Cynthia
Sent: Monday, November 8, 2021 3:07 PM
To: eril-l at lists.eril-l.org<mailto:eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
Subject: [Eril-l] Cost per use from COUNTER 5 Ebook reports

EXTERNAL MESSAGE
Hello - I am just realizing I may not be computing the unique titles used/requested for an ebook resource properly.

In the past, I have taken the number of titles mentioned in a TR report as the unique ebooks - what we would have had to purchase as firmorders if we wanted to replace the use we got from the subscription.

At first, I thought that that's what Unique_Item_Requests represented when I started using COUNTER 5 Report Tool. Now that I read the definition, I'm not so sure.  I haven't gone back in and compared the number of titles in my TR report to the Uniquet_Item_Requests in my PR reports, but I suspect they're not the same. And if I had used Unique_Title_Requests, would that have been better? Can anyone shed light on this please?


EBOOK USAGE AND COST PER USE





Jan-Oct.
10-month price
Jan-Oct.

platform
data_type
metric_type
year
reporting_period_total
subscr price
Firmorder cost 2021
Cost per Use
BloomsburyCollections
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
92

$ 95.00
$ 33.19
Brill
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
1


$ -
Cambridge Core
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
146

$ 9.18
De Gruyter Platform
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
6


$ -
EBSCOhost
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
5230

$ 1,307.81
$ 1.10
Grove Music Online
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
9


$ 190.56
JSTOR
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
47

$ -
Manchester University Press
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
6


$ -
Oxford African American Studies Center
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
11

$ 85.91
Oxford Biblical Studies Online
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
274


$ 6.28
Oxford Bibliographies
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
33

$ 10.83
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
34


$ 45.64
Oxford English Dictionary
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
735

$ 0.54
Oxford Handbooks Online
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
178


$ 8.82
Oxford Reference
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
1

$ -
Oxford Research Encyclopedias
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
6


$ -
Oxford Scholarship Online
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
11

$ -
ProQuest
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
3


$ -
ProQuest Ebook Central
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
3036

$ 2,831.94
$ 3.41
Project MUSE
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
1218

486.25
$ 1.77
Wiley Online Library
Book
Unique_Item_Requests
2021
2

$ -


Cindy Harper
Electronic Services and Periodicals Librarian
Virginia Theological Seminary, Box 159
3737 Seminary Road
Alexandria, VA 22304
charper at vts.edu<mailto:charper at vts.edu>
(703)461-1794

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