2017 Charleston Library Conference

Academic libraries throughout the World require accurate and reliable usage data. Requirements include demonstrating a return on investment for costly e-resources, access to data to support policy and planning processes, to benchmark against comparable organisations and to support advocacy.

Gathering, managing, measuring and analysing usage data to support each of these processes is imperative. However, such activities are time consuming and involve significant duplication of effort, with libraries across the World replicating similar tasks. Additionally, access to accurate and consistent data can be problematic, impacting upon opportunities for comparison and benchmarking.

Rather than trying to tackle these challenges in isolation, collaboration across organisations and nations can offer a powerful force for change. Jisc, the UK higher, further education and skills sectors’ organisation for digital services and solutions has partnered with universities and organisations in the UK, USA and Australia and New Zealand to explore the challenges around consistently measuring and monitoring usage and impact. Jisc provides access to library analytics tools to support communities in accessing, analysing, evaluating and reporting on e-resource data. Working with these existing tools, whilst fostering new relationships and collaborations has enabled teams to work internationally to address global issues.

Focusing on several case studies, this session will outline some recent achievements to highlight the benefits of collaboration, to indicate what can be achieved more successfully in partnership than alone, to demonstrate lessons learned and to offer some useful tips for anyone embarking on a similar initiative.