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Levine-Clark, Michael, “Questioning Assumptions: E-Book Usage on a Global Scale,” ProQuest, Portland, March 26. 2015.
1. Questioning Assumptions: E-
Book Usage on A Global Scale
Portland
March 26, 2015
Michael Levine-Clark
University of Denver
michael.levine-clark@du.edu
2. What (we think) we know
• E-books are better/worse
– For some subjects than others
– For some types of use than others
• E-books don’t work for immersive reading
• E-books don’t work for the humanities
3. Tons of Data
The Project
• Worldwide usage data
– EBL 2013-2014
– ebrary 2013-2014
– All customers
– Aggregated by title
• Today:
– EBL 2013
– ebrary 2014
4. The Shape of the Data
• Spreadsheets for the world and by region
• One title, with all associated data
– LC Class, Subclass, BISAC
– Publication Year
– Number of libraries with title available
– Number of libraries with usage
– Multiple measures of usage
5. Some Data Snags
• EBL and ebrary data are not yet merged
• Call numbers
– Missing
– Errors
• xQ102… (Q102)
• BBF1427… (BF)
• Not easy to retroactively build a list of titles
visible to a library at a particular time
6. Benchmarking
• What can we learn from worldwide usage
data?
• Do trends across a huge data set matter?
• Is every institution so unique that only local
data is meaningful?
– Every institution has other resources competing
for each user’s time.
– e-books take up varying portions of an overall
collection
7. Usage Definitions
• Session
– Any time that a user
interacts with an e-book
• Page View
– A count of the number
of pages examined
• Download
– A download of the entire
book (EBL and ebrary)
• Chapter Download
(ebrary)
• Usage Time
– Minutes (EBL) or
seconds (ebrary) spent
looking at the book
• Copies
– A count of pages
copied/pasted
• Prints
– A count of the number
of pages printed
8. Academic Complete
• Subscription package
• About 120,000 titles
• Same package at about 2,000 libraries
worldwide
• BIG IMPACT on ebrary data
13. Booth, Craft of Research
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
Libraries with availability
Libraries with Usage
14. Booth, Craft of Research
97%
17,089 Sessions
Academic
Public
Special
86%
Sessions by Region
Africa
Asia Pacific
AUS/NZ
Europe
Latin America
Middle East
North America
South Asia
UK/Ireland
15. Booth, Craft of Research
• Additional Measures of Usage
– 368,879 page views
– 1,162 pages copied
– 62,009 pages printed
– 0 downloads
– 2,323 chapter downloads
– Used 17,453,759 seconds (4,848 hours)
17. Categories of Analysis
• LC Class and subclass
– Broad academic division (humanities, social
sciences, STEM)
– Subject
• BISAC
• Publication date
• Region (Africa, Asia Pacific, etc.)
• Publisher or publisher type
18. Academic Divisions
Arts & Humanities
B (Philosophy, Religion)
excluding BF (Psychology)
C, D, E, F (History)
M (Music)
N (Fine Arts)
P (Language & Literature)
TR (Photography)
Other
A (General)
G (Geography, Anthropology,
Recreation)
Z (Bibliography, LIS)
Social Sciences
BF (Psychology)
H (Social Sciences)
J (Political Science)
K (Law)
L (Education)
U, V (Military, Naval Sciences)
STEM
Q (Science)
R (Medicine)
S (Agriculture)
T (Technology) (excluding TR)
19. Titles Available by Academic Division
194,420
185,558
184,053
78,854
STEM A&H Soc Sci Other
(12%)
(30%)
(29%)
(29%)
110,292
102,409
118,732
53,561
(14%)
(29%)
(27%)
(31%)
20. Average Number of Libraries with Title Available
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
21. Average Number of Libraries with Title
Available – Academic Divisions
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
Arts & Humanities Social Sciences STEM Other
412.26
22. Average Number of Libraries with Title
Available – Academic Divisions
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Arts & Humanities Social Sciences STEM Other
88.89
23. Average Number of Libraries
with Title Available - LC Class
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
412.26
24. Average Number of Libraries
with Title Available - LC Class
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
88.89
26. Average Number of Libraries With:
0.00
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
6.00
A & H Soc Sci STEM Average
Session
View
Download
Copy
Print
Libraries with title available
76.78 100.63 87.56
27. Percentage of Libraries With:
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
A & H Soc Sci STEM Average
Session
View
Download
Copy
Print
28. For every library that has a session…
A & H Soc Sci STEM Average
View 0.946 0.951 0.936 0.944
Download 0.278 0.296 0.321 0.300
Copy 0.075 0.098 0.085 0.087
Print 0.094 0.106 0.085 0.096
0.000
0.100
0.200
0.300
0.400
0.500
0.600
0.700
0.800
0.900
1.000
View
Download
Copy
Print
Expressed as
percentage of
sessions, with
sessions = 1.00
29. Average Number of Libraries with a View
0.90
0.91
0.92
0.93
0.94
0.95
0.96
0.97
Relative to libraries with
sessions
30. Average Number of Libraries with Download
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
0.40
Relative to libraries with
sessions
31. Average Number of Libraries with Copy
0.00
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
0.12
0.14
Relative to libraries with
sessions
32. Average Number Libraries with Print
0.00
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
Relative to libraries with
sessions
33. Percentage of Libraries Using a Title
Region Average # of
Libraries with Title
Average # of
Libraries with Use
of Title
% of Libraries Using
Title
UK/Ireland 18.97 2.15 11.33%
Australia/NZ 16.86 1.39 8.22%
North America 204.70 5.26 2.57%
Europe 60.36 1.48 2.46%
Asia Pacific 169.97 1.78 1.05%
South Asia 58.06 0.56 0.96%
Middle East 87.51 0.71 0.81%
Africa 69.14 0.51 0.77%
Latin America 119.40 0.93 0.68%
World 412.26 9.25 2.24%
34. Percentage of Libraries Using a Title,
By Academic Division
Discipline Average # of
Libraries with Title
Average # of
Libraries with Use
Percentage of
Libraries Using Title
Social Sciences 509.16 12.61 2.48%
STEM 378.90 8.95 2.36%
Arts & Humanities 554.74 10.71 1.93%
All Subjects 440.54 14.17 3.22%
35. Percentage of Libraries Using a Title,
By Discipline
Region Arts & Humanities Social Sciences STEM
Africa 0.33% 1.08% 0.85%
Asia Pacific 0.71% 1.24% 1.31%
Australia/NZ 6.23% 9.42% 9.34%
Europe 2.07% 2.81% 2.47%
Latin America 0.42% 0.80% 1.19%
Middle East 0.54% 0.88% 1.12%
North America 2.42% 2.72% 2.58%
South Asia 0.60% 1.04% 1.32%
UK/Ireland 9.84% 13.22% 11.01%
World 1.93% 2.48% 2.36%
36. Conclusions about Likelihood of Use by
a Library
• For EBL, a library has the most chance of
seeing at least one use of a title in:
– Arts & Humanities for sessions and views
– STEM for downloads
– Social Sciences for copies and prints
• For ebrary, a higher percentage of libraries use
titles in STEM and Social Sciences with
variation by region
38. Titles Available / Titles Used
53.08%
46.88% 46.71%
38.59% 36.20% 33.13% 32.62% 32.16% 30.81%
25.41%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Titles With a Session Titles without a Session
39. Percentage of Titles Used By Discipline
63.84%
59.47%
50.20%
53.08%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Social Sciences Arts & Humanities STEM All Subjects
Useed Unused
40. Percentage of Titles Used By Discipline
73.99%
67.36% 67.36% 68.75%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Social Sciences Arts & Humanities STEM All Subjects
Useed Unused
41. Percentage of Titles Used By LC Class
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Session No Session
42. Titles Used By LC Class
0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
Session No Session
43. Percentage of Titles Used, By Division
Region Arts & Humanities Social Sciences STEM
Africa 14.95% 30.77% 33.96%
Asia Pacific 45.80% 48.95% 46.48%
Australia/NZ 35.61% 40.24% 40.69%
Europe 36.79% 37.97% 25.36%
Latin America 26.83% 35.65% 34.11%
Middle East 25.65% 29.62% 41.59%
North America 54.16% 54.67% 43.94%
South Asia 24.01% 32.28% 43.88%
UK/Ireland 38.17% 38.45% 31.66%
World 59.47% 63.84% 50.20%
54. Conclusions about Likelihood of Use
• Social Science titles are more likely to have at
least one use
– But, some humanities subjects are most heavily
used. P (languages and literature) is relatively
poorly used.
• In general, social sciences titles are used
above what one would predict, with sciences
lower.
71. Likelihood of High Use: Conclusions
• Views Per Session
– Lowest in Developing
world
– Generally highest for
STEM
• Copy/Paste Per Session
– Regional variations
– Generally highest for
Social Sciences, lowest
for STEM
• Downloads Per Session
– Highest in Developing
world
– Generally highest for
STEM
• Printing Per Session
– Regional variations
– Generally highest for
STEM
72. Time Per Session
• Shorter in developing world
• Longest in Arts & Humanities
• Shortest in STEM
74. Top 10%* of Titles with Sessions
• Worldwide
– 45,350 titles (10.08%)
• 107 sessions or more
– 13,708,391 sessions (70.20% of all sessions)
– Available at 1,681 libraries on average
*Based on an earlier, smaller data set that did
not include some of the unused titles
75. % of Sessions Represented by Top 10% of Titles
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
80.00%
76. Disciplinary Representation Within Top
10% of Titles Used
A&H
32%
Soc Sci
38%
STEM
26%
Other
4%
Titles
A&H
28%
Soc Sci
41%
STEM
27%
Other
4%
Sessions
77. Titles Available by Academic Division
30%
29%
29%
12%
STEM (Q, R, S, T-TP, TS-
TX)
Arts & Humanities (B-BD,
BH-BX, C, D, E, F, M, N, P,
TR)
Social Sciences (BF, H, J,
K, L, U, V)
Other
78. Disciplinary Spread within Top 10% of Titles Used
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Other
A & H
STEM
Soc Sci
79. % of Sessions within Top 10% of Titles
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
A & H Soc Sci STEM Other
80. % of Sessions Represented by Top 10% of Titles
65.06%
73.66%
70.69%
60.00%
62.00%
64.00%
66.00%
68.00%
70.00%
72.00%
74.00%
76.00%
A & H Soc Sci STEM
81. % of Sessions Represented by Top 10% of Titles
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
80.00%
A & H Soc Sci STEM
82. High-Use Titles: Conclusions
• Top 10% of titles represent 70% of sessions
worldwide
• Social Sciences more heavily represented than
in the data set as a whole
• Arts & Humanities more heavily represented,
but accounts for fewer sessions than would be
expected
– Usage spread more deeply across titles for A&H
108. One Size Does Not Fit All
• Arts & Humanities
– Highest likelihood a library with access to a title will make
use of it
• Social Sciences
– Highest percentage of available titles used
– Even higher percentage of overall sessions
• STEM
– Most page views per session
– Most downloads per session
– Least amount of time in the book
109. Don’t Rely on a Single Measure of Use
• Comparing multiple factors tells a more
complete story
– Actions per session
– Use relative to availability
– Intensive vs extensive use
110. Think Broadly
• All subjects get used
• Publication date does not appear to be a
major factor