The Assessment and Measurement of Metrics on

Electronic Information Resources for Libraries

Ya-ning Chen

Computing Centre, Academia Sinica20 Oct. 2005

Outline

• Data gathering of electronic information resources

• Dimension for analysis and evaluation• Methods of assessment and measurement

– Output Assessment– Performance Measures– Service Quality– Outcomes Assessment– Miscellaneous: User Behavior

• Conclusions and suggestions

Data Gathering

• Strand 1 – Basic data for librariesNISO Z39.7: 2004, ISO – 2789:2003, CNS-13151

• Strand 2 – Harmony of Vendor’s dataCOUNTER

• Strand 3 – A Framework for all partiesICOLC

NISO Z39.7: 20041

• 主要以彰顯與標示圖書館的電子資訊資源的館藏、設備、經費、人員配置、使用者及使用情形。主要類別與項目有

1. Collection Ejournals( 含 periodicals, nerwspapers, and serials) 種數 CDROM Computer Files Databases Digital documents eBooks Free Internet Resources Other digital documents, et al.

NISO Z39.7: 20042

2. Workstations Available workstations Available Internet workstations

3. Finance Capital expenditures Operating expenditures by type of

expenditure Operating income by source Capital revenue

NISO Z39.7: 20043

Operating expenditures Audiovisual materialsBibliographic utilities, networks and consortiaComputer hardware, software, supplies and maintenanceEjournalsDocument delivery/Interlibrary loanElectronic accessElectronic materialsEmployees benefitFurnishing and equipmentPreservationProfessional staff salaries and wagesStudent assistant salaries and wagesSupport staff salaries and wages

NISO Z39.7: 20044

Operating income by sourceFederal governmentLocal governmentOther sourcesState government

NISO Z39.7: 20045

4. Services Gate Count → Visits Counter Hours Open → Available Time Information Requests: including Virtual Reference Transactions Library Events/Program → eLearning Loans and Document Delivery Use

Electronic Collection Internet Access No. of Public Access Workstation Users

User Orientation and Training Attendance at User Training Formal user Information Technology Training - eLearning Information Services to Groups Point-of-Use Information Technology Training User Training

NISO Z39.7: 20046

5. Primary Target Population Academic Library Network and Cooperative Target Population Public Library School Library Special Library State Library Agency

6. Human Resources Certified Library Media Specialist Contributed Service Staff Other Staff Professional Staff Qualified Special Staff Staff Training

Staff Hours of Training No. of Staff Trained

Student Assistants Volunteers

CNS-13151

• 請詳– 林呈潢主持（民 93 年）。圖書館統計標準與

電子圖書館服務使用評量（初版）。臺北市：國家圖書館。

– 林呈潢、王麗蕉（民 93 年）。電子圖書館統計標準發展之探討。在 21 世紀數位圖書館發展趨勢（頁 351-370 ）。臺北市：文華。

COUNTER1

• Launched in March 2002, COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources) is an international initiative designed to serve librarians, publishers and intermediaries by facilitating the recording and exchange of online usage statistics.

• COUNTER has set out to achieve this, that is, the use of these online information resources should be measured in a more consistent way.

COUNTER2

• Code of Practice for Journals and Databases

• Code of Practice for Books and Reference Works

Code of Practice for Journals and Databases: 2005

• Journal Report 1: No. of Successful Full-text Article Requests by Month and Journal

• Journal Report 2: Turnaways by Month and Journal• Journal Report 3: No. of Successfual Item Requests and

Turnaways by Month, Journal and Page-Type• Journal Report 4: Total Searches Run by Month and Ser

vice• Database Report 1: Total Searches and Sessions by Mo

nth and Database• Database Report 2: Turnaways by Month and Database• Database Report 3: Total Searches and Sessions by Mo

nth and Service

Compliant Vendors

• http://www.projectcounter.org/articles.html

Code of Practice for Books and Reference Works : 2005

• Book Report 1: No. of Successful Title Requests by Month and Title

• Book Report 2: No. of Successful Section Requests by Month and Title

• Book Report 3: Turnaways by Month and Title• Book Report 4: Total Searches and Sessions by Month a

nd Title• Book Report 5: Total Searches and Sessions by Month a

nd Service• Book Report 6: No. of Successful Item Requests and Tur

nways by Month, Title and Page-Type• Book Report 7: Number of Successful Print Requests by

Month and Title

ICOLC1

• Min. Requirements– Data Elements

• No. of Sessions (logins)• No. of Queries (searches)• No. Menu Selections• No. of Full-Content Units

– Journal Articles – by journal title with ISSN and Title– E-Books – by book title with ISBN and Title– Reference Materials – by content unit (e.g dictionary defi

nitions, encyclopedia articles, biographies, etc.– Non-textual resources – by file types (e.g. image, audio,

video, etc.)

ICOLC2

– Subdivision• By each specific database of the provider• By each set of Institutional IP addresses or other special data

element (e.g. account no.)• By overall consortium, aggregated at the consortium level• By time period, with a month as the primary coverage unit,

aggregated annual as appropriate.

• Privacy and User Confidentiality• Institutional or Consortia Confidentiality• Access• Delivery• Report Formats

Dimension for analysis and evaluation

• Cost

• User Satisfaction

• Performance Indicators

• Outcome and Impact

Methods of assessment and measurement

• Output AssessmentCost of Per Use, 館藏資源 / 服務與諮詢 / 使用者/ 使用情形 / 經費 & 預算

• Performance Measures• Service Quality

LibQUAL+, Balanced Scorecard, Best Practices, Benchmarking

• Outcomes Assessment• Miscellaneous: User Behaviors and Requireme

nts, Collection Development

Output Assessment1

• Cost of Per Use– Formula

Total Cost ÷ No. of use OR No. of use ÷ Total Cost

– Case Study• Journal of Cost Per Use Statistics University of Wisconsin-M

adison Libraries – 1998-1999http://www.wisc.edu/wendt/journals/costben.html

• The Cost per Article Reading of Open Access Articleshttp://www.dlib.org/dlib/january04/holmstrom/01holmstrom.html

Output Assessment2

• NISO Z39.7

• ISO-2789:2003

• CNS -13151

Performance Measures

• ISO 20983: Information and Documentation – Performance Indicators for Electronic Library Services

• E-Metrics (ARL)

ISO 209831

• Is the first edition for the evaluation of electronic library services in 2003.

• In the future, ISO 20983 will be incorporated into ISO 11620.

ISO 209832

• Is composed of 5 dimensions and 14 categories in the following:– User Perception: general– Public Services: general, providing documents,

retrieving documents, lending documents, document delivery from external sources, enquiry and reference services, information searching, user education, and facilities.

– Technical Services: acquiring documents, processing documents, and cataloguing.

– Promotion of Services– User Services: deployment of staff

ISO 209833

• PIs– Percentage of Population Reached by Electronic

Services– Percentage of Expenditure on Information Provision

Spent on the Electronic Collection– No. of Documents Downloaded Per Session– Cost per Database Session– Cost Per Document Downloaded– Percentage of Rejected Sessions– Percentage of Remote OPAC Sessions– Virtual Visits as a Percentage of Total Visits

ISO 209834

• PIs– Percentage of Information Requests Submitted

Electronically– No. of User Attendances at Electronic Service

Training Lessons Per Capita– Workstation Hours Available Per Capita– Population Per Public Access Workstation– Workstation Use Rate– No. of Attendances at Formal IT and Related Training

Lessons Per Staff Member– Percentage of Library Staff Providing and Developing

Electronic Services

E-Metrics1

• This E-Metrics study was 18-month project from 2000 to 2003 and was composed of three phases as follows:– An inventory– An identification– Identifying and testing data elements

• 5 dimensions of E-Metrics Projects are proposed to measure in the following:– Resource– Use– Cost– Digital Collection– Performance

E-Metrics2

• Resource Measures: Patron Accessible Electronic Resources– No. of Electronic Full-text Journals (R1)– No. of Electronic Reference Sources (R2)– No. of Electronic Books (R3)

• Use Measures: Use of Networked Resources and Services– No. of Electronic Reference Transactions (U1)– No. of Logins (Sessions) to Electronic Databases (U2)– No. of Queries (Searches) in Electronic Databases (U3)– Items of Requested in Electronic Databases (U4)– Virtual Visits to Library’s Website and Catalog (U5)

E-Metrics3

• Cost Measures: Expenditures for Networked Resources and Related Infrastructure– Cost of Electronic Full-text Journals (C1)– Cost of Electronic Reference Sources (C2)– Cost of Electronic Books (C3)– Library Expenditures for Bibliographic Utilities,

Networks, and Consortia (C4)– External Expenditures for Bibliographic

Utilities, Networks, and Consortia (C5)

E-Metrics4

• Digital Collection Measures: Library Digitization Activities– Size of Library Digital Collection (D1)– Use of Library Digital Collection (D2)– Cost of Digital Collection Construction and Management

(D3)• Performance Measures

– Percentage of Electronic Reference Transactions of Total Reference (P1)

– Percentage of Remote Library Visits of All Library Visits (P2)

– Percentage of Electronic Books to All Monographs (P3)

Service Quality

• LibQUAL+

• Balanced Scorecard

• Best Practices

• Benchmark

LibQUAL+1

• The LibQUAL+ was initiated in Sept./Oct. 1999.

• The LibQUAL+ was developed based on SERVQUAL model.

• 3 dimensions and 22 core questions. Three dimensions are listed as below:– User Perceptions of Service Affect– Information Control– Library as Place

LibQUAL+2

• User Perceptions of Service Affect– Employees who instill confidence in users.– Giving users individual attention.

• Information Control– Making electronic resources accessible from home or office.

• Library as Place– Library space that inspires study and learning

• To examine and explain the results based on 3 ways as follows:– Gap scores (min., perceived and desired scores)– Radar chart– Bar chart

Balanced Scorecard1

• The balanced scorecard was developed in the early 1990's by Drs. Robert Kaplan and David Norton and is a new approach to strategic management.

• The balanced scorecard is a management system (not only a measurement system) that enables organizations to clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into action.

• Four Dimensions– Financial– Internal Business Processes– Learning and Growth– Customer

• Vision and Strategy

Balanced Scorecard2

Outcomes Assessment1

• The Linear Model

• The Cyclic Model

• The Spiral Swirl

• A Framework

Outcomes Assessment2

INPUTS OUTPUTS

Outcomes

Service Quality

Invested Resources Invested ResourcesResults

Examples of Input and Output

• Input– XX1 Human Resource– XX2 Budget– XX3 Working Days– XX4 Overhead– XX5 Facilities

• Output– YY01 Ref. Questions– YY02 Q&As– YY03 Manual– YY04 Bib Recs– YY05 Ejournals– YY06 EBooks– YY07 Databases– YY08 Organized Directorie

s– YY09 BI Programs– YY10 eLearning Materials– YY11 eLearning Programs

Miscellaneous

• Web Log File

• User Behaviours and Requirements

• Collection Development

Conclusions and Suggestions1

• What are to be measuredWhat goals and objectives do library plan to perform and present for?

• What data are to be measured What data are required to achieve expected goals and objectives? What are data elements, granularity and comprehensiveness collected for?

• How to assess the data– Output Assessment– Performance Measure– Service Quality– Outcomes Assessment– Strategic Management– User Study

Conclusions and Suggestions2

• Past is more Descriptive for Internal use:– Output Assessment– Performance Measures– Service Quality

• Proactive actions are required for libraries to take right now: – Service Quality– Outcome Assessment– Analysis and Profile of User Behaviours and Require

ments– Miscellaneous: Strategic Management

Conclusions and Suggestions3

• Publishers are required to offer libraries more detailed information of the usage of electronic resources in order to establish “win-win” partnership.

• In addition to assessment/measure/evaluation, user study and collection development will be more important for libraries in the near future.

• More factors are required to take into account for subscription of electronic resources, ranging from output, performance, service, outcome, to user requirements and collection development.

Reference• ARL. (2002). Measures for electronic resources: Complete set. Washington,

DC: ARL.• Bertot, J.C. (2005). Assessing digital library services: Approaches, issues, a

nd considerations. Paper presented at DLKC’04. Available at: http://www.kc.tsukuba.ac.jp/dlkc/~proceedings/papers/dlkc04pp72.pdf

• Bertot, J.C., & McClure, C.R. (2003). Outcomes assessment in the networked environment: Research questions, issues, considerations, and moving forward. Library Trends, 51(4), 590-613.

• COUNTER Project Website: http://www.projectcounter.org/• ICOLC. (2001). Guidelines for Statistical Measures of Usage of Web-Based

Information Resources. Available at: http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/2001webstats.htm

• NISO. (2004). NISO Z39.7: Information services and uses: Metrics & statistics for libraries and information providers: Data dictionary. Available at: http://www.niso.org/emetrics/current/complete.html

• Technical Committee ISO/TC46. (2003). ISO/TR 20983:2003(E): Information and documentation – performance indicators for electronic library services.

Thanks for your attention, and

Welcome any comments!