Presented at the 2010 Electronic Resources & Libraries Conference. -- Lauren Fancher, GALILEO, University or Georgia -- Abstract: Galileo, Georgia's Virtual Library, has been capturing usage data from its system since 1995 and eggregating data from vendors since 2002. The history of GALILEO's engagement with providing meaningful data for meaningful purposes is full or adventure, hope, set backs, and opportunities. Learn how one consortia has braved the impossible to deliver the adequate, and hopes for a more a-COUNTER-able future.

1. Aggravation and Aggregation:
A Sweet Story About Statistics
Lauren Fancher, GALILEO
University System of Georgia
ER&L, January 2010

2. Lies, @#$% Lies
This is not a sweet story.

3. But you are: about you
Photograph of bookmobile, Bainbridge, Decatur County, Georgia, between 1936 and 1938.
Reported to be the first bookmobile in Decatur County.
The woman in the middle is the librarian, Mrs. Freddy Campbell.
Vanishing Georgia, Georgia Division of Archives and History, Office of Secretary of State.
Vanishing Georgia Database, Digital Library of Georgia, GALILEO

4. Lots of Practice
• GALILEO, Georgia’s Virtual Library
• Provides databases and a research portal with
federated search, SFX, and EZproxy to over
2000 institutions via 5 audience-specific
interfaces and 400+ profiles, which provide
the aggregation points for usage data
• 1995 to 2010

5. Those Happy, Golden Years:
1995-1998
• GALILEO originally built on OCLC’s SiteSearch
Software
• Z39.50 searches of both local (ProQuest and
Were any of you
EBSCO) and vendor-hosted (OCLC) collections
still in high
• Detailed information about sessions, types of
school?
searches, indexes searched
• Perfect correlation between use and data

6. Vendor Web Interfaces: 1998 to ?
Bainbridge, ca. 1928. Service Drug Co., the Rexall Store, owned by Julian B. Ehrlich,
was located at 124 East Broughton Street. Items carried by the store, as advertised by being
painted on the store's side wall, are: cold drinks, candy, cigars, fountain
pens, stationary, perfumes, Eastman Kodaks, sundries, and novelties.
Vanishing Georgia, Georgia Division of Archives and History, Office of Secretary of State.
Vanishing Georgia Database, Digital Library of Georgia, GALILEO

7. Familiar Problems?
• From 1998 to 2002, vendor data proved elusive
and impossible to capture
• Many vendors did not and do not provide data on
the usage of their products
• Consortial reporting features were and are not
widely available
• Data elements were and are not consistent from
vendor to vendor
• The disappearance of data from the aggregated
repository belied the actual use, undermining
accountability reporting

8. The Dark Cloud
• Unavailable or uncollectable data
– Consortial aggregation issues
• Too much information
• Not enough information
– Limitations of vendor reporting tools
Unavailable or uncollectable data
• Only at an institution level
• Only at a product level, or only at a platform level
• Data utility and definition (hits vs. searches)
• Unique product features (video, topic
overviews, ebooks)

9. Perils
• The fiend of inconsistency
• Changes in subscriptions, institutions require a new
effort or revisions to methods
• Access to previous statistics for products no longer
available or even in existance.
• Every change a vendor makes to a database may
impact their statistical reports
• Staff turnover
• New services, new data: SFX, federated search,
ebooks, ejournal packages

10. Statistics
Gathering and Consolidation Process

11. Vendor Data

12. Vendor Data

14. Usage Data Repository
•Sessions
•Days, Months, Years
•Locally-Loaded Database Searches, Full-
Text, Citations, Indexes Searched, and More
•Digital Library of Georgia Usage of Collections

17. Definitions
GALILEO COUNTER, Code of Practice, Version 3.0, Released August 2008
Appendix A: Glossary of Terms
http://www.projectcounter.org/code_practice.html
3.1.2.10 Search A specific intellectual query, typically equated to submitting the search form of the
Searches online service to the server (EBSCO, abridged)
3.1.2.6 Article header That subsection of an article which includes the following information: publisher;
Citation Views journal title, volume, issue and page numbers; copyright information; list of names
and affiliations of the authors; author organization addresses; title and abstract
(where present) of the article; keywords (where present)
3.1.2.13 Link-out Linking from one online resource to another. The act of clicking the link and
Links Chosen moving to a page on another site. Generally used to measure activity for library-
configurable links as might be found in a link server. The domain name of the
target of the link in the transaction to be recorded. (EBSCO).
3.1.4.2 Session A successful request of an online service. It is one cycle of user activities that
GALILEO typically starts when a user connects to the service or database and ends by
terminating activity that is either explicit (by leaving the service through exit or
Sessions logout) or implicit (timeout due to user inactivity) (NISO)

18. Definitions
GALILEO COUNTER, Code of Practice, Version 3.0, Released August 2008
Appendix A: Glossary of Terms
http://www.projectcounter.org/code_practice.html
3.1.2.1 Item Full text article, TOC, A uniquely identifiable piece of published work that may
Full-Text Views Abstract, Database be: a full-text article (original or a review of other
record published work); an abstract or digest of a full-text article;
a sectional HTML page; supplementary material associated
with a full-text article (eg a supplementary data set), or
non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, or audio).
3.1.2.1.1 Full-text item Full-text article, A category of ‘item’ such as a full-text journal article, a
book chapter book chapter, or an encyclopedia entry
3.1.2.2 Full- Content Unit Journals: article
Books: Minimum requestable unit, which may be the entire
book or a section thereof.
Reference Works: content unit appropriate to resource (eg
dictionary definitions, encyclopedia
articles, biographies, etc)
Non-textual resources: file type as appropriate to resource
(eg image, audio, video, etc) (ICOLC)
3.1.2.3 Article An item of original written work published in a
journal, other serial publication, or in a book. An article is
complete in itself, but usually cites other relevant
published works in its list of references, if it has one.
Other Related Counter Definitions: PDF, HTML

19. What is Not Included?
• Data from vendors that provide only institution-
specific reports and vendors that do not
provide statistics at all
• Yet-to-be mapped vendors
• Data that distinguishes between on- and off-
site usage
• Lags: one month (Britannica) or two months
(Lexis Nexis) behind the current month
• Journal usage data at the journal title level
• Federated search data from the search service

20. Sad or Wonderful?
• Britannica hits
• Federated searching
• EBSCO federated search gateway and WebFeat
• MetaLib IP

21. Old and New Reporting Tools
Original Reporting Tool
• http://dbs.galib.uga.edu/stats/html/stats.html
• Offers data repository collected from the GALILEO
system (1995-present) and database vendors (2002 to
present for most)
• Tool allows selection of institutions, databases, data
types, including date ranges (days, weeks, months)
• Reports group each data type separately
(searches, full-text, etc.)
• Reports output to screen (HMTL) or as delimited text

22. Old and New Reporting Tools
New Reporting Tool
• http://www.galileo.usg.edu/stats
• Utilizes same data repository as original reporting tool (data
collected from GALILEO system (1995-present) and database
vendors (2002 to present for most))
• PHP, MySQL, webservice from repository, ChartDirector
• Provides a default landing page for each institution that shows
current month’s data and links to additional reporting tool options
• Reporting tool allows selection of institutions, databases, data
types, including date ranges (months, fiscal years)
• Reports output to screen (HTML) in graph or table format. Graphs
can be downloaded for use in documents. Tables utilize standard
column headings for data types (searches, full-text, etc.) and rows
for databases. Tables can be exported as delimited file (download).

23. Hope
• Pro: COUNTER for standardization and
SUSHI for retrieval already helping
institutions make decisions based on
cost-per-use and other analysis points
• Neutral: Funding for consortia too
complex to reduce easily
• Con: Adoption, complexity

24. COUNTER Assessment Findings
• 11 reports defined in COUNTER Revision 3
• In FY09, GALILEO hosted 203 databases
available through 16 vendor platforms
• COUNTER Reports Most Commonly Available
from GALILEO Vendors
– Journal Report 1: Number of Successful Full-Text Article
Requests by Month and Journal (7 platforms, 178 databases,
88% of databases)
– Database Report 1: Total Searches and Sessions by Month
and Database (8 platforms, 179 databases, 89% of database)
– Database Report 2: Turnaways by Month and Database (6
platforms, 116 databases, 57% of databases)
– Database Report 3: Total Searches and Sessions by Month
and Service (8 platforms, 179 databases, 89% of databases)
– All other reports are not delivered in this format at vendors, with the exception of
Journal Report 3 at ProQuest

25. COUNTER Assessment Findings
• COUNTER Reports Data Partially available in
GALILEO
• Database Report 1: Total Searches and Sessions by Month
and Database
• Counter Report Similar to Current GALILEO
Reports, Not Available at Vendors
• Consortium Report 2: Total searches by month and
database

26. Onward
• Next phase: GALILEO will provide Database Reports
1-3 and Consortia Report 2 as part of COUNTER
compliance and ICOLC endorsement. Data may not
be collected in this format from vendors.
• Additional Counter Report elements need to be
accounted for in repository and collected, including:
• Publisher
• Platform
• Searches -- Federated and automated
• Total sessions
• Sessions – Federated and automated
• Page Type (Database Turnaways)
• Service name
• Page Type (HTML)
• Page Type (PDF)

27. Stuff
• lauren.fancher@usg.edu
• www.galileo.usg.edu
• Presentation: http://tiny.cc/galstats