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

["Kaemper, Bernd-Christoph" <kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de>]

David Goodman wrote

> (The company was indeed apparently producing such reports internally, 
> since it did send them to those customers who convinced them they 
> would otherwise cancel multiple titles.)

This is most probably true for Wiley Interscience, but it is only fair to
point out (as I did before also on the ReedElsevier listserv)  that at the
time we received those reports for ScienceDirect Web Editions, Elsevier
customer staff (for whose support I am thankful)  had to extract them
manually and it took quite some time until we received them. But that was
*before* the consolidation of Web Editions and ScienceDirect under a
common platform and I think it should be much more easy in future. If
other enhanced functionality of SD can be made available for WE customers,
why not stats? This most probably is a question of policy, not of cost.

In our particular situation where we have both Web Editions and fully
licensed titles, it seems even more difficult to see why we should receive
statistics for one set of titles but not for the rest although it resides
on the same platform. But of course the policy decision of Elsevier not to
offer statistics for web editions may well influence the way in which they
set up the system now. Also, I am not so naive as to think that the costs
of running a system are low once it has been set up. We would even be
prepared to pay Elsevier a reasonable amount of money to provide us with
usage statistics - what we cannot except though is that the provision of
usage statistics is tied to subscribing to a particular licensing scheme
(like the ScienceDirect complete or limited collection models).

-- 
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