Innovative Interfaces and MPS Technologies announced Nov.2 that the Washington State University Libraries have achieved real-time acquisition of user statistics from within the Innovative Electronic Resource Management product. Staff has accessed data provided by ScholarlyStats, eliminating the need to retrieve them on a resource-by-resource basis.
Cooperation between MPS Technologies, the company that provides ScholarlyStats, and Innovative means that the data transfer happens as scheduled and without staff intervention. Access to ScholarlyStats data quickly provides usage information on thousands of e-resource titles to which the Libraries subscribe.
Currently, ScholarlyStats collects from 39 e-resource platforms covering over 450 databases, over 70,000 journals, and over 13,500 publishers. Armed with the data, ERM allows libraries to easily see how these resources are used including cost-per-use of specific titles within an e-resource package.
“Because we have a few hundred e-resource vendors, it’s crucial for us to obtain user statistics without the enormous effort of accessing them from each vendor and then trying to calculate cost-per-use,” says Janet Chisman, Head, Serials and Electronic Resources.
“Downloading statistics is now as easy as going to the resource record in the Innovative ERM, selecting the usage statistics tab, and clicking “Export”. In our first attempt, we downloaded statistics for over 1300 titles at once and we can now get statistics from ScholarlyStats every month. The Innovative ERM automatically calculates cost-per-use in the spreadsheet reports it generates which helps us when we need to evaluate contracts with e-resource vendors. The SUSHI-formatted data from ScholarlyStats and the compliance of the Innovative ERM with the standard is also crucial because there’s no programming necessary to translate the information at any point,” she said.
“We are thrilled to be working with such an established ERM provider as Innovative Interfaces and to be actively employing the recently published SUSHI initiative to enhance access and analysis of usage statistics within libraries,”said Martha Sedgwick, ScholarlyStats Product Manager
“We are pleased to be the first ERM solutions provider to make a live SUSHI client available to libraries. Libraries using the Innovative ERM can harvest usage statistics without wasting library staff time,” says Innovative’s Senior Product Manager Ted Fons. “The cooperation with ScholarlyStats and integration with acquisitions data will allow Innovative libraries to quickly and easily see where they are getting the most value for their electronic resource expenditures,” Sedgwick said.
The Washington State University Libraries have holdings of approximately 67,000 e-resource titles.
