Uses of Necessity or Uses of Convenience? What Usage Statistics Reveal and Conceal About Electronic Serials

Electronic serials (e-serials) have had a profound effect on technical and collection services in most academic libraries. E-serials circumvent traditional serials control practices; they force libraries to rely on publishers and third parties for archiving, and most pertinent to this volume, they relocate from libraries to e-serials providers the responsibility for measuring use. The disaggregation of “big deals” makes the collection and analysis of usage statistics especially important activities. Often uses of e-serials merely meet professorial requirements, rather than satisfy an information need, with no ability for libraries to distinguish between the two. Furthermore, the cost-per-use calculation performed by libraries to determine whether subscription or article-on-demand purchasing is the more fiscally-prudent option is fraught with error. A new means of calculating these figures must be developed.