Does COUNTER tell the whole story? Case-by-case examples demonstrating the limitations of COUNTER, and suggestions for alternative evaluation metrics

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PowerPoint slides and notes from a talk given at the 2017 CARLI Spring Forum on Collections Data Analysis and Maintenance, held at Governors State University.

Abstract

COUNTER reports are an extraordinarily valuable tool for evaluating the usage of library journal subscriptions. Unfortunately, COUNTER also has its limitations, especially in complicated licensing environments where usage and value needs to be attributed to a particular campus, library or institution. As part of a larger collection development project at Northwestern Universitys Galter Health Sciences Library, a team of librarians are analyzing citation and publication data, with plans to develop custom metrics and benchmarks to supplement COUNTER data. This short talk highlights a few specific examples where COUNTER data alone is insufficient, inconclusive or misleading in comparison to the other metrics being developed by Galter Library. Alternative methods and workarounds for evaluating journal usage and impact are then explored.

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presentation_location: University Park, Illinois, United States

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