Usage Reports & Influence on Renewing or Signing Licenses

[Mary Jenkins]

Do you recommend or make decisions related to renewals or new licenses for online legal information resources? If so, I would be glad to hear what your experience has been with usage reports. I am frustrated with an apparent lack of readily available, detailed usage reports from publishers of online content, other than Westlaw and LexisNexis. It seems foolish to renew a license for something that costs tens of thousands of dollars without any concrete evidence of the product's use by patrons. However, my efforts to get administrative access for the purpose of pulling usage reports or asking nicely for them from vendors seem nearly fruitless. In your experience, which content providers make usage reports available and which will require a full-scale customer rebellion to get anywhere?

[Vicki Szymczak]

Hi Mary - I had an interesting conversation with Dick Spanelli from Hein today. We were talking about usage stats for Hein and how much trouble they were having getting accurate stats in trying to be counter compliant. He indicated they spent well over six figures and still could not get the software to give good reports and were frustrated with the whole process (they can generate basic stats, but the more useful detailed reports are not available). I also know that BNA has been working on this for almost two years and also had a lot of trouble getting accurate or complete reports (although, I was told that by the end of the year we might have that from BNA). Wilson does provide good usage reports - I'm not sure what their secret is... But, generally, you are right, good, detailed usage reports are hard to come by. I think part of it is caused by the difficulties the vendors are having with getting the software to work with all their different products. - Vicki

[Mary Jenkins]

Vicki, Thanks very much for your reply. I worked in the academic library world previously and I'd say the vendors serving the academic market were at this stage maybe 10 years ago. Given that, legal publishers could look to the academic market to see what has worked. Also, I would much rather have some inadequate usage statistics that vary publisher to publisher than nothing at all, though I do support publishers' efforts to be Counter-compliant, of course. Thanks again.

[Rory Kingan]

Hi Mary - firstly as a disclaimer: I’m a software vendor in this space so obviously I have a vested interest in what I’m about to say and I don’t want to butt in with a sales pitch.
We encounter this issue with nearly every law firm we deal with: inability to get consistent detailed usage information from most resource vendors. Particularly when negotiating renewals it boggles the mind to think how librarians are supposed to make decisions with such less than perfect information.
Here comes the pitch: we provide a software product Research Monitor that, among other things, provides vendor-independent usage reports for all web-delivered resources such as BNA, CCH, Hein, PACER, as well as LexisNexis and Westlaw. At a high level it records all research sessions (researcher, duration, page hits, etc) and also more detailed usage (specific searches, search terms, number of results found, etc). Even with IP-authenticated sites you can report to the individual researcher.
Your question is essentially exactly why we developed our product.
This all means you can get detailed information to make decisions better, compare usage across different resources and over time, find out which groups/departments use resources, who needs more training, provide evidence for renewals, and so on. The reports are flexible, allowing you to look at the information in different ways or drill into it using excel.
There are other products in this space. Obviously I think ours is the best, but I think this sort of solution is the best way to address a clear problem and I believe the return on investment for this information is virtually a no-brainer.
If anyone is interested I’m more than happy to discuss or provide more information, or you can check out our website www.priorysolutions.com
Rory

[Susanna Leers]

Usage stats are going to be increasingly important this year - as a state-affiliated law school we already know we are going to be feeling the economic pinch and databases will be scrutinized very, very carefully. I would love to be able to get reliable stats... but buying a new online product to track usage will be a hard sell unless the price is very reasonable. Does anyone use any other usage stat tracking product?
BTW, BNA has been telling us for FIVE YEARS that they would have usage statistics for us "by next year". The best they can manage is to tell us how many people are getting email highlights, which is pretty useless considering that I set up many of those accounts for faculty and students and have no idea if they're even looking at them.

[Wendy Reynolds]

Personally, I find it somewhat difficult to get usage data from my vendors. FP/Infomart has been recalcitrant for years. I have actually cancelled sources which couldn't provide usage statistics to me. If a vendor is unwilling to prove that their product is making a contribution to my organization, why should I pay for it?

With some of the smaller sources (e-newsletters, for example), it was fairly easy for me to contact the subscribers and ask if anyone objected to my cancelling it. Phrased like that, you really found out quickly which sources were used and valued, and which weren't.

[Mary Jenkins]

Susanna, You're right: The pressure to demonstrate value is high, plus it's just simple common sense to justify expenses. Wendy, Thanks for your comment; I'm glad to have your example of cancellation for lack of usage data. It's lovely that third party vendors offer a solution and I will get quotes, because the current lack of stats is untenable - but it's still stunning to me that more vendors don't offer up any stats at all. I will seriously consider alternatives to some contracts and products in the coming year where there is a choice of vendor. In a recent user survey, our patrons (attorneys, for the most part) indicated a higher than expected comfort level with web-accessible resources and I am willing to bet that "brand loyalty" to a specific publisher on their part, save to the two most comprehensive legal info providers, will not be a major issue, as long as I'm matching or improving on content and as long as the interface is good. Thanks!