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Usage Data Analysis for E-Resource Management Decisions

eCAUG October 30, 2025

Caitlin Wilhelm, Cal State LA

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E-Resource Management Difficulties

  • Budget issues and corresponding overwhelm
  • Lack of understanding of e-resource importance to libraries
  • Understaffing (often 1-2 people handling all e-resource work)
    • Breakdown between who gathers stats and who analyzes them
  • Many moving pieces

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So Much Data, So Little Time

  • Plenty of data available – COUNTER, SUSHI (COUNTER API), other stats
  • Data doesn’t explain much on its own
  • How to move from data to understanding?
  • How to convey understanding between ERM folks, Analytics folks, and decision makers (liaison librarians, library admin)?
  • Lack of time affects everything!

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Workarounds & (Potential) Solutions

  • Lists, lists, lists
    • Vendors with different kinds of stats
    • Databases on different funds/with different renewal dates
  • Reports
    • Save your reports!
  • Look behind/plan ahead
    • What can you re-use from last year/other people’s work to make your life easier?
    • What can you create to make next year you’s life easier?

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Lists, Lists, Lists

  • Vendors

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Lists, Lists, Lists

  • I use Notion – plenty of other programs that do similar work
  • You can also use Analytics reports for some info!
    • Require you to be strict about how you use internal vendor records

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Lists, Lists, Lists

  • Databases/journals from specific vendors/accounts, or paid with specific funds
    • I download from sub managers and process in Excel, or maintain as part of reports in Analytics

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Reports

  • Determine what you’ll need to report on year-over-year, and create (and SAVE) your Analytics reports based on that
  • Even if not everything you’ll need to report on (“report” used loosely here) is in Analytics, it gives you a leg up

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Reports - Journals

  • Different ISSNs – collects all the ISSNs used by journals with the same titles
    • The ISSNs produced here are used for the Coverage Info and Usage reports
  • Coverage Info – do we have the same/similar coverage of a subscribed journal in a package?
  • Usage – what usage do we see? Is the usage in a package higher than the direct sub?
    • Embargo usage – do we only see usage when we don’t have other access?

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Reports - Databases

  • Not all database info can be pulled from Analytics, since not all databases provide COUNTER stats
  • Even for COUNTER databases, not all databases use the same COUNTER reports (Database versus Platform)
    • Not all provide both, not all make sense with both
  • Stats may not be provided broken down by the same breakdowns as payment
    • ProQuest Plan B – we have over 50 databases linked to 1 POL
  • Create and save your reports based on how you want to present data

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Analytics Demo

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Reports

  • Export Analytics reports to Excel and combine

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Reports

  • Export Analytics reports to Excel and combine

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Reports

  • Retrieve and report on non-COUNTER info in as comparable a way as possible

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Reporting Your Reports

  • How best to report to decision makers depends on the data, the decision makers themselves, and more
  • Color coding, notes, small group and individual meetings – how your colleagues receive your info is very individual
  • Explanations of what usage terms mean
    • Investigation versus Request
    • How to compare/understand non-COUNTER stats when they’re not normalizable

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Look Behind/Plan Ahead

  • Especially for non-standardized/non-COUNTER databases, you don’t want to reinvent the wheel every year
    • Plays versus Views versus Searches; choose which one you’ll use year-over-year
  • Related to saving your Analytics reports – save whatever you provided to decision-makers previously
  • Once provided, determine what was confusing/missing/etc. so you can provide it next time
    • Did multiple stakeholders ask the same question?

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Look Behind/Plan Ahead

  • Save your reports in a shared folder (do as I say, not as I do)
    • Succession planning ahead of time
  • Include instructions and write up documentation
    • Feels like you don’t have time for this (I certainly don’t), but it’ll make next year easier for you and 5 years down the road easier for your successor/assistant/etc.

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Additional Thoughts

  • By far not the only way to report on usage/cost-per-use
  • Don’t use the Cost-Per-Use sections of Analytics, do your own calculations
    • Analytics CPU data makes silly assumptions like dividing usage for a title by the number of portfolios of that title you have (very inaccurate measure of usage) or only using usage from one instance of that portfolio

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Questions?