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E-metrics for Library and Information Professionals: How to Use Data for Managing and Evaluating Electronic Resource Collections

by Andrew C. White, Eric Djiva Kamal

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Overview
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
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Overview

Is your library getting every dollar's-worth out of that thousand-dollar database? Should you re-subscribe to that pricey e-journal? Are your indexes serving your users? Collection development and acquisitions librarians are facing new tough questions. Unfortunately-until now-these were tough and, for many, unanswerable questions. White and Kamal show how to utilize e-metrics to measure library performance and value in the digital age. Learn how to effectively use the electronic data captured from various network activities to manage library collections, budgets, and services. Using e-metric, the authors identify expensive and underused digital resources, visualize virtual patron behavior patterns, and construct new collection development strategies. Real-world examples demonstrate how to develop a locally-established library e-metric system and apply it with vendor usage statistics to critical collection management and financial decisions. Practical tips and detailed analysis illustrate the important application of e-metrics to help you better serve your users and run an effective library.

Editorial Reviews

Doody's Review Service

Reviewer: Kevin R. Block, MS (University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey)
Description: This book covers why and how e-metrics should be collected by libraries using practical and real world examples, and does it in a user friendly manner. It traces the history of collecting and managing library usage statistics from the print era through the current electronic era and discusses their application in collection management and administration.
Purpose: The book attempts to bridge the gap between the usage statistics collection and analysis practices of the past and the strategies needed in the new virtual library environment. The authors focus on addressing e-metrics as a cost and collection analysis tool for libraries in the digital and virtual age. In an era of expensive virtual collections and tight library budgets, this book does a good job of discussing the need for e-metrics and how to collect and analyze them, and apply them to collection management and administrative decision making.
Audience: The chief audience includes the decision makers and systems staff at any size library that uses or wants to use e-metrics to manage and maintain their collections. Some understanding of the gathering of Web and electronic resources statistics is helpful, but not necessary.
Features: The book is divided into three sections: e-metric basics and their use in libraries, why libraries need e-metrics, and how to build e-metrics gathering systems. The book explains library e-metric standards and compares business e-metrics models to library models. It covers vendor supplied e-metrics and how libraries can develop their own e-metric collection systems. It discusses combining vendor supplied e-metrics with locally developed systems and how to apply them to collection management and financial decisions. Included are a number of charts, forms, and graphs that can aid in assessing any library's collection. A bibliography and appendixes with programming scripts are included to aid in developing local e-metrics systems.
Assessment: This is a timely and well written book on developing e-metric collection and management systems; I recommend it to any librarian needing help managing virtual collections.

Library Journal

Libraries have traditionally recorded gate counts, reference questions, book circulations, collection size, and other easily understood measures of size and use, but as more of our collections and services move online, other statistics are needed to reflect new types of library and information use. The term "e-metrics" refers to the standards of measurement for electronic services and the electronic means of gathering those measures. Following an explanation of the history of e-metrics, this work by the associate director and systems administrator, respectively, of the Health Sciences Library, SUNY at Stony Brook, discusses the benefits and drawbacks of vendor-supplied e-metrics, recognizing that these statistics are not all measured the same way by different vendors and so are not necessarily comparable. The books's middle Q&A section, concentrating on using e-metrics for collection development, library administration, and public relations purposes, consists of the most common questions asked by funding agencies and users. The last section examines solutions for capturing, understanding, and archiving local e-metrics. The ability to measure the use of online services and to understand those measurements is imperative for all librarians. Recommended. [See Winter 2006 netConnect, with this issue.-Ed.]-Margaret Sylvia, St. Mary's Univ. Lib., San Antonio Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.