COUNTER in Context Scarlet Galvan | Collection Strategist Librarian Grand Valley State University Libraries Northern Ohio Technical Services Librarians | June 2022

I’m Scarlet I’m the Collection Strategist Librarian. At GVSU this means I’m responsible for the library’s negotiation frameworks, reinvestment priorities, strategies around the collection and services, developing policy, and assessment projects.

Institutional context: Grand Valley State • R3 • Public • About 23,000 students • “Teacher-scholar” model: many faculty researching praxis, assessment, and using a variety of pedagogies. • ILS from Sierra → FOLIO in June 2021.

A picture in need of a frame • COUNTER is usually a starting point, not an end point for decision making. • COUNTER requires context.

COUNTER as a diagnostic tool Connectivity between systems. Snapshots of activity. A starting place for return-on- investment analysis.

Three scenarios, three takeaways Each institution has different values and goals. Each library encountered different questions using COUNTER data.

Scenario 1 • Small public liberal arts college. • Many alumni pursue graduate degrees. • Library has a relatively flat organizational structure where information sharing is used to understand strategy and decisions.

COUNTER alone: • Use of American Chemical Society journals quadrupled in one year! • No institutional memory of this happening before.

What might be the cause? Automated downloading? Are there significantly more chemistry students? Paper sharing?

Enjoy your sabbatical We might need to invest in some backfiles.

Takeaway Not all unexpected use is fraudulent use. It might be a couple of researchers with time to get caught up on reading.

On reasonable answers and stories we tell ourselves about data

Scenario 2 • R1 with a medical school, residency program, and several specialized centers for research. • University cut millions of dollars to the library’s collection budget.

COUNTER + ILL: • A prestigious medical journal has almost no use according to two years of COUNTER data. • No requests during the same period for interlibrary loan on this title.

What might be the cause? Is it a case of “needing” a resource? Was there an issue with discovery or the knowledge base? What’s going on in the learning management system?

Competing stories • “Data is data and therefore unimpeachable” vs “Something is happening with the data.” • “Faculty must not have participated in the process” vs “Sometimes data can be given nuance through individual experience.” • “Going after the most expensive subscriptions is the best way to absorb the cut” vs “Resources are complex and often not as straightforward as on or off.”

Version control Faculty vote tallies somehow overwrote the original COUNTER data.

Takeaway Significant decisions about the collection require many stakeholders at the table. Library workers can own our expertise.

Scenario 3 • A new colleague in the liaison group wants to know how to best direct their time and capacity. They ask about resource usage in their disciplines to learn more.

COUNTER + LibGuides: • COUNTER shows high investigations of resources in the disciplinary areas your new colleague is covering. • “Generalist” and intro guides get very little use in this subject area. • Class-specific guides get the highest use. • COUNTER investigations are high, but requests are low.

What might be the cause? Users may be skimming search results and headlines to stay current. Uneven levels of collaboration between teaching faculty and library. First and second year students may use other resources.

Takeaway When given context, COUNTER can help us understand where to focus time and resources.

Other mitigating factors • Many providers unlocked content during initial Covid shutdowns in 2020. • Many providers migrated from COUNTER 4 to COUNTER 5 during this time as well. • Remote teaching, learning, and working may influence statistics depending on local configurations.

A final consideration • COUNTER has limitations. Those limitations should not be justification to engage in limitless surveillance. • From an ethical standpoint, I only want to know the minimum necessary in order to improve services and make collections decisions.

Want to chat? galvansc@gvsu.edu @panoptigoth on social media