2019 Charleston Library Conference

In order to make decisions around collections, most libraries utilize a variety of data points and measures. For print materials, the information needed to make these decisions is readily available in the library’s integrated library system. For licensed electronic resources, information needed to make decisions is dispersed across hundreds of vendors and in multiple data structures. In this session, we will explore how analyzing the usage data in EZproxy log files can provide an additional and supplemental means of gathering usage data at a more granular level not available through COUNTER. Assessment of such data provides insight into return on collection investments, more effective negotiation with vendors, improvements in user experience, and improved marketing of licensed electronic resources. In this presentation, we will consider an individual institution’s local experience in developing an EZproxy assessment program, as well as a cooperative/consortial service that assists libraries with leveraging EZproxy logs for e-resource analysis.

Emory will discuss why they have chosen to invest in such data gathering methods, the work that has gone into establishing a usable platform for reading this data, challenges around gathering and reading the data, and examples of how the data has been/will be utilized and applied for specific assessment projects. OCLC will share current and future plans for EZproxy Analytics, an add-on to the EZproxy hosted product that extracts, enriches, and visualizes e-resource usage data in EZproxy logs, and how pilot libraries have utilized it for collection development decisions, improvements to the e-resource user experience, and the streamlining of workflows to secure compromised user accounts.