RE: article on aggregated databases

["Chen, Xiaotian" <chen@bumail.bradley.edu>]

Three factors need to be considered when evaluating today's usage 
stats:

1.  the role of OpenURL link resolver.  It is possible that users 
start from a general aggregated full-text database, but do not 
use the full text from native database and use the link of 
OpenURL to get full text elsewhere.  So OpenURL could cause 
"decreasing downloads."  It can also help increase downloads, 
depending on the OpenURL settings.  There are simply so many 
variables due to OpenURL.

2. the role of federated search engine.  Obviously, it helps 
increase searches.

3. the quality of statistics provided by vendors.  We seldom hear 
questioning on the quality of usage stats provided by vendors, 
because it is not as obvious as the holes in swiss cheese.  But I 
noticed that sometimes we get lousy stats that either over-state 
or under-state the real number.  One the one hand, I have had 
received reports about sucessful full-text downloads from titles 
that have never existed on the database.  On the other hand, I 
have also received reports of a grand total smaller than a sub 
total---that is, vendor-reported search smaller than 
federated-search-reported search, with the former being grand 
total and the latter sub total.

Nevertheless, that is a very interesting study and I will start 
to watch the differences between searches and downloads.

Thank you.

Xiaotian Chen
Electronic Services Librarian
Bradley University
Peoria, Illinois 61625
http://hilltop.bradley.edu/~chen/index.html

________________________________

From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of Barbara Fister
Sent: Sat 7/26/2008 8:45 AM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: article on aggregated databases

Interesting to see a drop at your place, too. But yeah, what's up
with the searches? Are students becoming more selective about
what they click on? Are they flailing around more, so throwing
more terms at the databases while being dissatisfied with what
comes back?

It's all very puzzling.

Barbara

>Linda Wobbe wrote:
>
> At Saint Mary's College we have seen a similar trend: increasing
> "searches" in article databases - decreasing "articles downloaded".