Re: COUNTER: current status and advice to users]

[Andrea Twiss-Brooks <atbrooks@uchicago.edu>]

In my role as bibliographer/selector, I use information about 
past book usage (both print circulation and electronic usage) to 
help make decisions about purchases of new editions, additional 
volumes in a series, additional titles in a particular specific 
subject area, etc.  The e-book usage can sometimes indicate 
whether a particular community is "ready" to rely on e-books in 
their subject areas, guiding format decisions for future 
purchases.  Collection development (at least as I practice it) is 
a subjective art, but one that I try to supplement with more 
objective information to support my decisions.

Andrea Twiss-Brooks
Co-Director, Head of Collection Services, Science Libraries, and
Physical and General Sciences Bibliographer
email:  atbrooks@uchicago.edu
John Crerar Library,  University of Chicago, 5730 S. Ellis


At 06:08 PM 2/13/2007, Sandy Thatcher wrote:
> Excuse my ignorance, but would someone please explain to me why anyone
> cares about usage statistics for books?