RE: COUNTER: current status and advice to users]

["S Nieminen" <S.Nieminen@Bradford.ac.uk>]

Some ebooks are paid for per annum and not bought outright. The 
statistics help with decision making when renewing/cancelling 
such leased ebooks.

Ms Satu Nieminen
Electronic Resources Librarian
University of Bradford
JB Priestley Library
Bradford
Email s.nieminen@bradford.ac.uk

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sandy Thatcher
Sent: 14 February 2007 00:08
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: COUNTER: current status and advice to users]

Excuse my ignorance, but would someone please explain to me why 
anyone cares about usage statistics for books? I can understand 
that usage statistics for journals might enter into decisions 
about whether to continue subscriptions, but what decisions 
follow from book usage statistics? Since books are unique items, 
and a library has already purchased the book before any usage 
statistics are available, what does one do with the statistics 
one gathers about book usage? I can imagine that authors might 
find the information valuable, as usage might be some indicator 
of value, and even publishers might find the information useful, 
as a sign of what kinds of books seem to have a greater 
receptivity in the market than others. But why are these 
statistics important to librarians?

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press

>*Books and Reference Works (Release 1)*: since it was published
>in March 2006, 3 vendors have become compliant with this Code of
>Practice. Implementation by vendors has been slower for several
>reasons, the most important of which is the fact that demand
>from librarians for COUNTER compliant usage statistics is, as
>yet, much less strong for books than it is for journals. This
>is, however, beginning to change as both supply of and demand
>for e-books is starting to accelerate, and we expect a rapid
>expansion in the number of vendors compliant with this Code of
>Practice in 2007.