Mine or theirs, where do users go?

A comparison of collection usage at a locally hosted platform versus a publisher platform

Juleah SwansonAssistant Professor,Acquisitions Librarian for Electronic ResourcesThe Ohio State University Librariesswanson.234@osu.edu

ALCTS CMS Collection Evaluation and Assessment Interest GroupJune 30, 2013

American Library Association Annual 2013Chicago, IL

Overview

Context

• 1995- Elsevier offered 1,100 of its journals in electronic form to subscribers

• 1997- Elsevier launches ScienceDirect

• 1998- OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center (EJC) goes live online

• 2000- 3,000 journal titles and over 1.9 million articles in the EJC

• 2009- ScienceDirect held 9 million articles, 4,700 e-books, for 11 million

researchers in over 200 countries.

• February 2009- OhioLINK & EJC system failure

• March 2009- EJC fully restored

• 2011- 15 Millionth article added to EJC

Methodology Highlights

• Why ScienceDirect?• Ability to obtain OhioLINK wide data

• Substantial number of titles

• Parallel history

• Data reviewed from 2007-2012

• Title lists reviewed for matches

• Usage analyzed per 100 titles

Year Title Count

2007 1910

2008 2050

2009 2084

2010 2154

2011 2243

2012 2245

Number of matching titles

Usage per 100 titles at the Electronic Journal Center and ScienceDirect

EJC Usage February 2009

Usage per 100 titles

ScienceDirect:y = 5.1748x - 198939R² = 0.4997

Electronic Journal Centery = -1.2238x + 54936R² = 0.2033

Rolling 12-month average usage per 100 titles at the Electronic Journal Center and ScienceDirectUsage per 100

titles

Science Directy = 5.0881x - 196354R² = 0.8238

Electronic Journal Centery = -1.1064x + 50314R² = 0.6413

Initial Findings, Thoughts & Implications

• Does it even matter that users seek content at a publisher platform over a

local platform?

• Should a local platform be transformed into something that competes with a

publisher/commercial platform? Or should it be transformed into something

that better serves the remaining users? Or should it just stay the same?

• What can be learned from the EJC to enhance other types of local

platforms being developed today (institutional repositories, digital archives,

data libraries)?

Questions or Feedback?

Juleah Swanson

Acquisitions Librarian for Electronic Resources

Assistant Professor

The Ohio State University

Swanson.234@osu.edu

Twitter: @juleahswanson