[Eril-l] [EXTERNAL] Chapter usage interest from librarians? Question about BMJ posting

Electronic Resources in Libraries discussion list eril-l at lists.eril-l.org
Sun Oct 5 23:46:46 PDT 2025


Morning all

Just to flag, and with all due apologies to anyone who has already heard me
say this on many previous occasions: I always recommend using the actual
COUNTER Reports (PR, DR, TR, IR) over the standard views. We built Release
5 from the ground up to be a powerful, flexible and comprehensive usage
reporting framework. It replaced the more content-specific reports required
in Release 4, which are pretty much what you are seeing in the views, and
which deliberately exclude a huge amount of valuable information. There's a
downloadable on our website that allows you to compare what's in the
Reports and the views:
https://www.countermetrics.org/comparing-reports-and-standard-views/

Those of you who've attended any of my webinars or conference sessions over
the last couple of years will also be aware that my recommendation for any
eventual R5.2 (which is not currently on the cards and which will not be
implemented before 2030 at the very earliest!) is to get rid of standard
views in favour of leveraging the power of the Reports by using filters,
either on their own or in combination.

All the best

Tasha


Tasha Mellins-Cohen

Executive Director, COUNTER Metrics

Email: tasha at countermetrics.org

Web: countermetrics.org

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On Thu, 2 Oct 2025 at 17:02, Electronic Resources in Libraries discussion
list via Eril-l <eril-l at lists.eril-l.org> wrote:

> A book provider could choose to provide chapter level data with the actual
> chapter names using the IR report.
>
> It wouldn't be in the IR_A1 which is just journal articles, or the IR_M1
> which is just multimedia titles.
> But it could be in the "master" IR, which is described in the COP5.1
> <https://cop5.countermetrics.org/en/5.1.0.1/04-reports/04-item-reports.html>
> <https://cop5.countermetrics.org/en/5.1.0.1/04-reports/04-item-reports.html>
> as:
> "A granular, customizable report showing activity at the level of the item
> (article, chapter, media object, etc.) that allows the user to apply
> filters and select other configuration options."
>
> If there's more interest in this, we could ask COUNTER Metrics (the
> organization) to consider adding a "IR_B1" for book chapters, although that
> probably wouldn't be possible until 5.2 in several years.
>
> Melissa Belvadi
> mbelvadi at upei.ca
> Make an appointment: https://mbelvadi.youcanbook.me/
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Eril-l <eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org> on behalf of Electronic
> Resources in Libraries discussion list via Eril-l <eril-l at lists.eril-l.org
> >
> *Sent:* Thursday, October 2, 2025 11:18 AM
> *To:* Electronic Resources in Libraries discussion list <
> eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Eril-l] [EXTERNAL] Chapter usage interest from
> librarians? Question about BMJ posting
>
>
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>
> Hi Melissa,
>
> I also find that to be an interesting statement... I mean, I've definitely *peeked
> *at the chapter/section level usage for fun (i.e. I've put
> "unique_item_requests" for eBooks alongside "unique_title_requests" to see
> any correlation between uses), but I don't utilize that usage to make
> acquisition decisions.
>
> I think Chapter usage *could be* interesting if a report would show the
> actual Chapter Titles because then I could see if the same exact chapter is
> being accessed by 100+ students (maybe for a course) or if the usage of the
> book is pretty widespread across different chapters.
> Definitely interested in reading other perspectives on this.
>
> Erika Boardman
> UNC Charlotte
>
> On Thu, Oct 2, 2025 at 9:15 AM Electronic Resources in Libraries
> discussion list via Eril-l <eril-l at lists.eril-l.org> wrote:
>
> [*Caution*: Email from External Sender. Do not click or open links or
> attachments unless you know this sender.]
>
> BMJ customer contacts recently got an e-newsletter that included a link to
> this "Q&A":
>
>
> https://bmjinsiders.com/2025/09/26/the-move-to-counter-5-1-questions-from-the-road/
>
> It included this interesting claim: "So, instead of just counting the
> whole book, librarians are focusing more on how individual chapters or
> sections are used. This gives a much clearer picture of which parts of a
> book are most popular."
>
> I am really curious to know of librarians who really do want to know this
> chapter-level usage, and how it could be useful to know "which parts of a
> book are most popular", since we thus far are not offered an option to
> purchase/license just parts of books.
>
> And it just so happens that emphasizing chapter usage figures makes for
> much larger total usage numbers, which I can imagine a publisher would use
> to try to sell more books.
> Call me cynical, but I would genuinely like to hear more from librarians
> who really do something useful with chapter level usage data.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> Melissa Belvadi
> Collections Librarian
> University of Prince Edward Island
> mbelvadi at upei.ca  902-566-0581
> ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4433-0189
> my public calendar
> <https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/0fbab27c909e4493be65313bd66d66b6@upei.ca/5fa60af92c6d451c9ddf90c0bb11e00f15552192987609852692/calendar.html>
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