Presentation delivered at the ASLIB Engineering & Technology group and the Aerospace & Defence Librarians Group event titled: Surviving the recession: maximising your value. Held at Imperial College on the 15th of November 2011.

1. Electronic Collection
Management:
How statistics can, and
can’t, help.
Surviving the recession: maximising your value
ASLIB Engineering & Technology Group
Aerospace & Defence Librarians Group
John Harrington Selena Killick
Head of Information Services Library Quality Officer

2. Introduction
• Institutional, financial and strategic context
• Previous methods used to review journals collections
• Role of qualitative and quantitative measures
• What these measures can and cannot tell us

3. Cranfield University
• The UK's only wholly postgraduate university focused
on science, technology, engineering and
management
• One of the UK's top five research intensive
universities
• Annual turnover £150m
• 40% of our students study whilst in employment
• We deliver the UK Ministry of Defence's largest
educational contract

4. Key Drivers
• Financial realities
• Demonstrating value for money
• Strategic alignment
• Research Excellence Framework (REF)
• Income
Mission critical
• Reputation

5. Expenditure on Journals
Journal Spend
2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10

6. Expenditure on
Resources
Cranfield University
Information Provision Expenditure
by Format 2009-10
0%
8%
29%
Books inc. special collections
Total Journals
e-Books
58% Other databases
Other digital documents
4%

7. How do we demonstrate that the collection
is meeting the needs of the University?

8. Previous Techniques
Used:
Annual journals review using the follow data
• Circulation figures – issues and renewals
• “Sweep survey” to capture in-house use
• Journal contents page requests
• Download figures
• Journal prices v the cost of ILL requests
More recent focus on “cost per download”

9. New Approach
Quantitative: Qualitative:
• Size • Academic Liaison
• Usage • Reading Lists Review
• Coverage • REF Preferred
• Value for Money

10. Quantitative Reporting

11. Quantitative Reporting
• Systematic
• Sustainable
• Internal benchmarking
• Elevator pitch
• So what?
• Enable informed decision making
• Demonstrate smart procurement

12. Brought to you by the
letters…
&

13. Our Approach
• What has everyone else done?
• Analysing Publisher Deals Project
• Storage centre
• Excel training
• Template design

14. Basic Metrics
• Number of titles within a package
• Total annual full-text downloads
• Cost:
• Core titles
• e-Access Fee
• Total costs

15. Value Metrics
• Average number of requests per title
• Average cost per title
• Total cost as % of information provision expenditure
• Cost per full-text download
• Average download per FTE student/staff/total
• Average cost per FTE student/staff/total

16. The Long Tail
Downloads
Titles Titles Titles
Long Tail Short Tail No Tail

17. Subscribed Titles
• Reviewing performance of core collection
• REF Preferred?
• Popular?
• Three year trends in cost / downloads / CPD
• Cost / Downloads / CPD categorised:
• Zero
• Low
• Medium
• High
• Cancel?

18. Popular Titles
• Which titles are the most popular?
• Top 30 titles in the package
• Three year trends in downloads
• REF Preferred?
• Subscribed title?

19. Considerations
• When to measure from/to?
• calendar, financial/academic, or contract year?
• Which titles make up our core collection?
• Do we have access to all of the „zero use‟ titles?
• What constitutes Low/Medium/High?
• What about the aggregator usage statistics?
• Do we trust the usage statistics?
• What is the size of the target population?

20. Electronic Collection
Management:
How statistics can, and can’t,
help.

21. Qualitative Measures

22. Academic Liaison
• Who‟s using it?
• Why?
• How?
• How valuable is it?
• What will be the impact if we cancel?
• Teaching?
• Research?

23. Quantitative on the
Qualitative:
Analysis on the five REF Preferred Recommended
Journals Lists:
• Overlapping titles
• Unsubscribed titles
• Financial shortfall
• Current recommended subscribed titles
• Usage data

24. Reading List Review
Qualitative analysis on course reading lists:
• What are our academic recommending?
• Where is it published?
• How often is it recommended?
• Are there alternatives?

25. Using the results

26. What they can do:
• Both qualitative and quantitative measures tell the
story of the resource
• Aid decision making
• Justify procurement
• Safeguard budgets

27. What they can’t do:

28. Conclusions

29. Closing thoughts
• Is it worth investing in this?
• Qualitative & Quantitative
• Danger of relying on cost-per-download

30. Looking Ahead
• Review of all budgets
• All Resources
• Systems
• Staff
• Services
• Demonstrating Value and Impact
• Resources
• Services

31. Thank You
Selena Killick John Harrington
Cranfield University Cranfield University
s.a.killick@cranfield.ac.uk j.harrington@cranfield.ac.uk
Tel: 01793 785561 Tel: 01234 754477