E-book usage: counting the challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Academic libraries are spending a growing proportion of their increasingly stretched budgets on e-books each year. Within this context, demonstrating a return on investment is imperative, but gathering data about e-resource usage is not always easy. This article summarizes how libraries and library consortia are acquiring and evaluating e-books, how usage statistics feature within library workflows, the issues faced in doing so and the resulting impact of these issues on understanding usage and informing purchasing of new titles. Discussions with publishers indicate how usage data are being used within the organization, the requirements of customers and the challenges involved in providing usage data for e-books. Assessing and evaluating e-book usage is a complex and challenging task with processes and workflows in development. A transition from print to e-books represents a significant change for libraries, and the availability of reliable usage statistics to support purchase decisions is vital. The article is based on a series of case study interviews with representatives from a small cross-section of academic libraries, library consortia, publishers and aggregators. This work is of interest to anyone with responsibility for creating, managing, developing, delivering and supporting usage statistics and standards for e-books.