Association of Research Libraries (ARL®)

Rush Miller (University of Pittsburgh)
Sherrie Schmidt (Arizona State University)
Carla Stoffle (University of Arizona)

A major problem facing research libraries today is the lack of data on electronic resources and services. Problems and challenges in doing this are many and obvious: there is a lack of clear and consistent definition of data elements that should be collected and analyzed, vendors do not "count" things in the same manner, membership in consortia can skew statistics related to individual libraries in a consortium, libraries structure themselves differently in regard to electronic resources making data gathering difficult, libraries do not control access to and use of important data related to vendor-supplied resources, the nature of the resources is changing rapidly and therefore data elements are shifting, and so on.

The E-Metrics project, one of the ARL New Measures Initiatives, is an effort to explore the feasibility of defining and collecting data on the use and value of electronic resources. ARL has some experience in tracking expenditures for electronic resources through the ARL Supplementary Statistics but there is a widely held recognition that more work needs to take place in this area. A group of 24 ARL libraries funded and are participating in a study that is taking place from May 2000 to December 2001. The project is under contract with Florida State University's Information Use Management and Policy Institute and is directed by Wonsik "Jeff" Shim, Charles R. McClure, and John Carlo Bertot under the leadership of project Co-Chairs, Sherrie Schmidt, Dean of University Libraries, Arizona State University Library, and Rush Miller, University Librarian and Director, University of Pittsburgh.

This discussion will examine some of the recommendations coming out of the ARL E-Metrics project, the lessons learned, and the future possibilities and challenges that this set of issues brings to the research library community. Some questions that arise are:

• The Phase II report http://www.arl.org/stats/newmeas/emetrics/phasetwo.pdf recommends 16 network statistics and 3 performance measures (see pages xiii-xiv.) Are these the selected key statistics and measures that can help us describe electronic resources, the use of these resources and services, library expenditures for these resources and services, and the level of development of digital library operations?

• What are the collaborative efforts we need to establish with the publishing and vendor community to support reliable and ongoing production of measures related to database use, users, and services?

• What is the value of these electronic resources and services to our community of scholars, faculty, students, as well as to the unidentified users who are accessing research library and university resources from around the globe?

"E-Metrics: Measures for Electronic Resources" by Rush Miller and Sherrie Schmidt [PDF]