SR visits: bringing electronic access to the census bureau library

Abstract

The United States Census Bureau Library, acting on a study commissioned in 2002, has undertaken to improve electronic access for their patrons. The library provides e-journal and database access. The staff relies on usage statistics from these resources to sharpen the focus of the collection. Through an aggressive outreach program Census Bureau employees learn about these new products and services. Future plans include adding more e-journals, an open OPAC, and a new library building.     

Serials and the OCLC Acquisitions Subsystem

Abstract

Academic library consortia, faced with requirements of assessment and accountability, are increasingly pressured to measure the impact of their networked electronic services. Studies on usage of electronic library resources and electronic journals, in particular, proliferate; relatively few focus on the academic library consortium. This paper gives an overview of one assessment tool, MINES for Libraries®, as implemented in the Scholars Portal service of the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL). The novel contributions of this study are twofold: firstly, the creation of peer groups within an academic consortium for comparison purposes, and secondly, the use of regression analysis to explore the correlation between usage and three separate variables outside the MINES survey — library print holdings, library acquisitions budget, and sponsored research revenue.     

The Impact of Web-Scale Discovery on the Use of Electronic Resources

Abstract

In 2015, the University of California, Berkeley, launched EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS), a web-scale discovery tool, with a goal of improving visibility and usage of collections. This study applies linear regression analysis to usage data for ebooks, ejournals, and abstracts and indexing (A&I) databases before and after implementation of EDS in order to identify correlations between the discovery layer and usage of library electronic resources across platforms. Our findings diverge from conclusions drawn in the previous literature that indicates that resource use generally increases after a discovery tool is implemented. We examine data from a longer period of time than the previous literature had, looking for statistically significant changes in resource use. The discovery layer at UC Berkeley did not lead to equal increases across platforms, but rather to a complex array of increases and decreases in use according to a variety of factors.     

Measuring Usage: A Comprehensive Analysis of a Social Work Journal Collection

Abstract

This study examines what can be learned about a library’s electronic social work journal collection from usage statistics, survey data, faculty publications, and an examination of open access (OA) availability. A collections analysis was completed using data from two sources: a custom report by 1Science and results of a faculty survey on top journals for teaching. After creating a list of journals important to social work, top journals were identified by article downloads, faculty-authored publications, and references to faculty-authored papers. A publications analysis using faculty websites and author searches in Web of Science was also completed, to provide local, contextual data. SHERPA/RoMEO was used to determine the journals’ OA level and archiving policy. Library coverage for the journals was also included in the analysis. Results show that the McGill University Library has access to almost all of the journals identified as important to social work. Nearly one-third of publications authored by the McGill University School of Social Work since 2006 are OA, and more than half of the faculty in the school have at least one article published in an OA journal. While this is a good start for librarians who want to help faculty and students understand OA publishing and access, there is room for outreach in this area. While these results will aid librarians supporting faculty, students, and practitioners in the field of social work, a secondary aim of the study is to demonstrate a method that can be used by librarians undertaking similar analyses in other fields.     

A unified approach to marginal equivalence in the general framework of group invariance

ABSTRACT

Two Bayesian models with different sampling densities are said to be marginally equivalent if the joint distribution of observables and the parameter of interest is the same for both models. We discuss marginal equivalence in the general framework of group invariance. We introduce a class of sampling models and derive marginal equivalence when the prior for the nuisance parameter is relatively invariant. We also obtain some robustness properties of invariant statistics under our sampling models. Besides the prototypical example of v-spherical distributions, we apply our general results to two examples—analysis of affine shapes and principal component analysis.     

Encountering COUNTER 5

Abstract

To make fiscally and academically responsible selection and deselection of subscribed content, it is critically important to have reasonably accessible usage data for those resources. To this end, the organizers of Project Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources (COUNTER) initiated the development of a standard known as the COUNTER Code of Practice. Beginning with the year 2019, COUNTER 5 standardized usage reports are available for most commercially published electronic information resources such as online journals, aggregated research databases, and ebooks. This column explores some of the differences between the COUNTER 5 Title Master Report-Journal Report (TR-JR1) report and the COUNTER 4 JR1 report for online journal usage and offers some assistance in extracting specific data from the TR-JR1 report that is not as readily visible as it was in COUNTER 4 reports.     

More Than Things

Abstract

The often invisible labor of serials, technical services, metadata, and electronic resources workers sits in the space between required and preferred, assessment and surveillance. Although libraries and information workers did not explicitly create the systems many of us live in, we are responsible for their everyday functioning. In many ways the narratives from technical services to the library are centered in objects: item counts, COUNTER stats, door counts, discovery, and other transactional data. And yet, we are stewards and maintainers, innovators and storytellers of the countless ways these objects are experienced. How can we help our colleagues understand the outreach component of this work? How do we responsibly confront power in our systems—which often miscalculates the necessity of care in favor of the shiny? What does it mean to honor expertise behind the scenes, and how might we gain agency in our systems once more?     

Uncovering the Mystery of How Users Find and Use eBooks through Guerilla Usability Testing

Abstract

This case study focuses on user research that was conducted to enhance our users’ ebook discovery experience. We took an outward-facing approach by seeking the users’ perspectives. We wanted to know: How do users find ebooks? How do they perceive multiple records for the same title? Would users find additional metadata useful, such as download availability, file format, and chapter titles? We coordinated guerilla usability testing in our library lobby, inspired by low-overhead, high-impact user experience work at other academic libraries. The resulting data gave us a much-needed new perspective of ebook usage that supplements what we already know from our day-to-day work.     

No Satisfaction? But We Try,and We Try,and We Try!

ABSTRACT

When Old Dominion University Libraries conducted the LibQUAL+ survey in 2015, results indicated a lack of satisfaction in effectively discovering and using our electronic resources. This article is based on a presentation from the 2017 North Carolina Serials Conference describing how Old Dominion University Libraries used data from the LibQUAL+ survey results to help our users connect more effectively with information resources, resulting in an improved user experience and an increased level of satisfaction.     

Leveraging Vendor Assessments of Usage Data

ABSTRACT

This article summarizes a presentation given at the 2017 North Carolina Serials Conference by Judith Nagata. The speaker discussed how her library used vendor-supplied usage data and graphic representations of that data to make decisions about journals and journal packages.     

The Impact of Web-scale Discovery on the Use of a Library Collection

Abstract

Grand Valley State University Libraries implemented Serials Solutions' web-scale discovery tool, Summon, during the fall of 2009. This case study explores whether Summon had an impact on the use of the library's resources during its first semester of implementation. An examination of usage statistics showed a dramatic decrease in the use of traditional abstracting and indexing databases and an equally dramatic increase in the use of full-text resources from full-text database and online journal collections. The author concludes that the increase in full-text use is linked to the implementation of a web-scale discovery tool.     

Testing the Fit of Gamma Distributions Using the Empirical Moment Generating Function

ABSTRACT

This article presents goodness-of-fit tests for two and three-parameter gamma distributions that are based on minimum quadratic forms of standardized logarithmic differences of values of the moment generating function and its empirical counterpart. The test statistics can be computed without reliance to special functions and have asymptotic chi-squared distributions. Monte Carlo simulations are used to compare the proposed test for the two-parameter gamma distribution with goodness-of-fit tests employing empirical distribution function or spacing statistics. Two data sets are used to illustrate the various tests.     

Will the ASA's Efforts to Improve Statistical Practice be Successful? Some Evidence to the Contrary

ABSTRACT

Recent efforts by the American Statistical Association to improve statistical practice, especially in countering the misuse and abuse of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) and p-values, are to be welcomed. But will they be successful? The present study offers compelling evidence that this will be an extraordinarily difficult task. Dramatic citation-count data on 25 articles and books severely critical of NHST's negative impact on good science, underlining that this issue was/is well known, did nothing to stem its usage over the period 1960–2007. On the contrary, employment of NHST increased during this time. To be successful in this endeavor, as well as restoring the relevance of the statistics profession to the scientific community in the 21st century, the ASA must be prepared to dispense detailed advice. This includes specifying those situations, if they can be identified, in which the p-value plays a clearly valuable role in data analysis and interpretation. The ASA might also consider a statement that recommends abandoning the use of p-values.     

Sunset Salvo

The Wilcoxon—Mann—Whitney test enjoys great popularity among scientists comparing two groups of observations, especially when measurements made on a continuous scale are non-normally distributed. Triggered by different results for the procedure from two statistics programs, we compared the outcomes from 11 PC-based statistics packages. The findings were that the delivered p values ranged from significant to nonsignificant at the 5% level, depending on whether a large-sample approximation or an exact permutation form of the test was used and, in the former case, whether or not a correction for continuity was used and whether or not a correction for ties was made. Some packages also produced pseudo-exact p values, based on the null distribution under the assumption of no ties. A further crucial point is that the variant of the algorithm used for computation by the packages is rarely indicated in the output or documented in the Help facility and the manuals. We conclude that the only accurate form of the Wilcoxon—Mann—Whitney procedure is one in which the exact permutation null distribution is compiled for the actual data.     

Testing high-dimensional normality based on classical skewness and Kurtosis with a possible small sample size

Abstract

By using the idea of principal component analysis, we propose an approach to applying the classical skewness and kurtosis statistics for detecting univariate normality to testing high-dimensional normality. High-dimensional sample data are projected to the principal component directions on which the classical skewness and kurtosis statistics can be constructed. The theory of spherical distributions is employed to derive the null distributions of the combined statistics constructed from the principal component directions. A Monte Carlo study is carried out to demonstrate the performance of the statistics on controlling type I error rates and a simple power comparison with some existing statistics. The effectiveness of the proposed statistics is illustrated by two real-data examples.     

NONPARAMETRIC TWO SAMPLE TESTS BASED ON AREA STATISTICS

ABSTRACT

Area statistics are sample versions of areas occurring in a probability plot of two distribution functions F and G. This paper presents a unified basis for five statistics of this type. They can be used for various testing problems in the framework of the two sample problem for independent observations, such as testing equality of distributions against inequality or testing stochastic dominance of distributions in one or either direction against nondominance. Though three of the statistics considered have already been suggested in literature, two of them are new and deserve our interest. The finite sample distributions of the statistics (under F=G) can be calculated via recursion formulae. Two tables with critical values of the new statistics are included. The asymptotic distribution of the properly normalized versions of the area statistics are functionals of the Brownian bridge. The distribution functions and quantiles thereof are obtained by Monte Carlo simulation. Finally, the power functions of the two new tests based on area statistics are compared to the power functions of the tests based on the corresponding supremum statistics, i.e., statistics of the Kolmogorov–Smirnov type.