Elsevier Science endorses new ICOLC Guidelines for measuring e-journal usage

["Voogt, Leo (ELS)" <L.Voogt@elsevier.nl>]

January 16, 2002

Elsevier Science endorses new ICOLC Guidelines for measuring e-journal usage

In December 2001, The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC)
issued an update to its guidelines concerning the metrics used in
evaluating electronic journal and database usage. ICOLC focuses primarily
on defining what publishers need to report regarding the usage of
electronic content and database searching. The updated "Guidelines for
Statistical Measures of Usage of Web-Based Information Resources"(Update:
December 2001) clarifies these requirements for reporting library usage of
vendor systems.  Elsevier Science has undertaken to support the updated
ICOLC Guidelines and hence ScienceDirect Customer Usage Reports will be
compliant with these ICOLC Guidelines in all future report upgrades.
Elsevier Science has been actively involved with the development of
published industry guidelines and intends to continue to work with ICOLC
to publish further updates to the published guidelines, which focus on the
reliability and standardization of the reported data and underlying
metrics. Initially Elsevier Science will exchange its definitions of the
reported data-elements, metrics and supporting systems with ICOLC, a
crucial starting point in determining standard ways of reporting usage. In
addition, Elsevier Science will commission an official audit of
ScienceDirect metrics and reports in 2002.

The complete original and updated Guidelines with endorsing library
consortia and additional information about the ICOLC can be found at
http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia . These Guideline updates are each
initially endorsed by 70 library consortia from around the world. More
consortia endorsements are added to each as received by the ICOLC.

About ScienceDirect Customer Usage Reports:

Every month librarians and information managers receive ScienceDirect
usage reports for their institution, which show the activity of their
users. Metrics are available for article usage per journal (subscribed and
non-subscribed), searching, sessions, number of active users and many more
items. With a 13-month reporting window it is very easy for
customers/librarians to distinguish usage trends. To view a demo version
of the reports please logon to: http://reports.sciencedirect.com username:
demo password: demo More information about ScienceDirect can be found at
http://www.sciencedirect.com For more information about this announcement
please contact: Marthyn Borghuis, Senior Manager Usage Research,
m.borghuis@sciencedirect.com

Leo Voogt
Director Global Library Relations