A reply to Elsevier [Re: Usage Statistics for Web Editions

[kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de]

Customers]
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Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 18:19:59 EDT
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*Please excuse the cross posting.*

Mr Menefee's statement misrepresents what I wrote and suggests that he 
does not understand my argument. 

I wrote that ScienceDirect Customers receive usage statistics only for 
fully licensed titles, so of course this is relevant to ScienceDirect 
Limited Customers. Only ScienceDirect Complete customers receive usage 
stats for all their Elsevier subscriptions, ScienceDirect Limited  
Customers only for a subset of their Elsevier subscriptions, even 
though they are already set up for the reporting module. And even SD 
Customers who have set up an account to purchase articles from  non-
subscribed titles plus content older than 12 months from Web Edition 
subscriptions on a transactional basis will receive only usage reports 
for those articles obtained through the pay-per-view account, not the 
equally important statistics for full text downloads within the rolling 
12 months window of Web Editions titles. But customers that are not 
prepared to offer ppv via transactional allowance have have no 
possibility to select important titles for a full license with 4 years 
of backfiles and advanced features such as reference linking and other 
functionality, at least not on the basis of usage statistics provided 
by the publisher. 

Judging from IoP and AIP usage data, I estimate that a move from Web 
Editions with access to the past 12 months only to a full ScienceDirect 
license that starts with another 4 years of back files could increase 
usage by a factor of two, on average, at least in the Physical 
Sciences, which would mean that the additional expense of 25% could 
well be justified provided the cost per use is enough to warrant a 
subscription instead of pay per view access. However, in the absence of 
usage data for Web Editions, this cannot be verified, and is the reason 
why many selectors do not consider moving to a full license. After all, 
better efficiency comes at the price of less titles that can be bought 
within a fixed budget. 

The argument that usage statistics is "costly to provide" doesn't make 
much sense once the basic infrastructure is in place, especially if 
they already have to provide statistics for a subset of fully licensed 
titles so that the account is already set up. 

Furthermore, it is not convincing that ELS should be able to provide 
complex personalization services and pay per view under the New Web 
Editions after migration to the SD platform, but not usage statistics. 

As Mr Menefee has pointed out this remains a policy question, and 
Elsevier clearly is not willing to change it. That this is against the 
spirit if not the letter of the COUNTER Code of Practice, is obvious 
from examination of Section 4 in the draft of Release 2, which 
clearly states that 

"Vendors must supply all the COUNTER-compliant usage reports relevant 
to their online product categories at no additional charge to customers 
in order to be designated �COUNTER-Compliant." 

It is because of the big players Elsevier and Wiley, that we will see 
these requirements diluted as Project COUNTER depends on the consensus 
of the parties involved. What remains then is just COUNTER-compliant 
statistics, and it will be up to the publisher whether he provides 
them at all or not. So a list of Vendors providing COUNTER-compliant 
statistics will remain useful only if it states for which products and 
under which plans the vendor provides statistics and for which not. 

Fortunately, most vendors make better informed decisions. Multi 
publisher platforms (e.g., MetaPress) have no interest to deny 
customers access to usage data. Some vendors are well able to offer 
different levels of service and still provide every customer with a 
free, standard, COUNTER compliant statistics report. E.g., Blackwell 
with its Standard and Premium Licenses, or ingenta which offers a free 
Standard Statistics Solution and a paid Advanced Statistics Solution. 
For an annual fee of $250, institutions may choose to upgrade their 
report access to an advanced statistics solution, enhanced with 
greater reporting functionality and features. -- This is what I 
regard as good practice. These vendors clearly commit themselves to 
the principle that all licensing of online products to customers should 
come with usage statistics, irrespective of whether the customer pays 
directly for the online product or indirectly in connection with a 
bundled print subscription. 

I fully agree with previous respondents that Publishers not providing 
usage statistics are even more at risk for cancellations and missed 
upgrade opportunities. As online usage is still increasing rapidly, 
much more than docdel costs, and cost per use is an important criterium 
for cost efficiency, publishers should have even more incentive to 
provide the data. 

Best regards,
Bernd-Christoph Kaemper

Bernd-Christoph K�mper
Universit�tsbibliothek Stuttgart, Holzgartenstr. 16, 70174 Stuttgart
- Fachreferat f�r Physik / Koordinierung elektronischer Ressourcen -
Postanschrift: Postfach 104941, 70043 Stuttgart,
Tel. ++49 711 121-3510, Fax -3502, E-Mail: kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Usage Statistics for Web Editions Customers
Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 17:47:15 EDT
From: "Menefee, Daviess (ELS)" <D.Menefee@elsevier.com>
Reply-To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
To: "'reedelscustomers@lists.cc.utexas.edu'"
<reedelscustomers@lists.cc.utexas.edu>,liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu

*Please excuse the cross posting.*

Recently there was posted to these lists a comment from a customer
regarding the omission of usage statistics for ScienceDirect Web
Editions Customers. The comment also suggested, erroneously, that 
COUNTER compliancy was involved in the question since Web Editions was 
moving to the ScienceDirect platform.

Elsevier provides COUNTER compliant statistics for all ScienceDirect
Complete and Standard customers.  The Standard contract level was
reported in the original posting as not being eligible for usage 
statistics but the fact is that all Standard customers do indeed 
receive them.  Web Editions' customers, however, do not.  The Web 
Editions product was conceived as a service to complement the print 
format and to enable libraries to begin to experiment with electronic 
journals at no additional cost.  Usage statistics are quite costly to 
implement.  Web Editions was neither designed nor developed to provide 
usage statistics no matter on what platform it rests. Elsevier does not 
intend to reverse this policy.  

Elsevier will, though, continue to support COUNTER and make the growing
number of its other online products as COUNTER compliant as quickly as
it possibly and reasonably can.

Daviess Menefee
Library Relations