E-LIS Introduces Usage Statistics for Authors

* Apologies for cross-posting *

We are glad to announce that a new Statistics module has been implemented in E-LIS, E-prints in Library and Information Science. The purpose of the statistics is to promote E-LIS repository and authors self-archiving as well, by demonstrating the accessibility and usage of deposited documents by access and downloads .

Usage statistics (abstracts, downloads) are now available by the following elements:

• Most viewed eprints in the last four weeks
• Most viewed eprints in this year
• Most viewed eprints in the last year
• Most viewed eprints in all years
• Repository-wide statistics by year/month
• Repository-wide statistics by country

You can see the implementation of the Statistics at http://eprints.rclis.org/. The use of statistics is basic for the development of Open Acess Model and for the achievement of our first objective: to promote self-archiving among researchers.

Some examples of statistics results are the following:
• Prosser, David C. ( 2003) Scholarly communication in the 21st century : the impact of new technologies and models. Serials : the journal for the serials community 16(2):pp. 163-167 .
• Suber, Peter (2006) Open Access in the United States, in Jacobs, Neil, Eds. Open Access : Key strategic, technical and economic aspects. Chandos Publishing .
• Estivill Rius, Assumpció and Abadal Falgueras, Ernest and Franganillo, Jorge and Gascón García, Jesús and Rodríguez i Gairín, Josep Manuel (2005) Uso de metadatos Dublin Core en la descripción y recuperación de artículos de revista digitales = Use of Dublin Core metadata for describing and retrieving digital journals . In Proceedings DC-2005 International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications, Madrid (Spain).
• Parmar, Arvind Singh and Kumar, Sanghmitra A. and Prakash, Thushara (2004) Bibliometric analysis of information seeking behaviour related literature

We encourage other repositories to implement statistics for each archived document. E-LIS uses EPrints Software module, but also DSpace has developed an Add-On for Statistics.

Some comments to the use of the statistics in E-LIS are the following:

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"All authors crave impact - we hope that what we write will affect readers and will make a difference. However, often it is difficult to tell if our work has even been read. Now we have a clue. The newly implemented download statistics in E-LIS tell me fascinating stories about the usage of my work - papers that I thought 'old news' are still being downloaded, the geographical distribution of readers is greater than I would have guessed. This is a wonderful tool for both authors and readers and shows, once again, the power of self-archiving. Now all I need to know is what the readers thought of my work!"
David Prosser
SPARC Europe

"Having statistics for each article posted in E-LIS can be a valuable tool for the study of the development of the intellectual production in librarianship and information science. This and the use of bibliometric techniques would help us assess library development around the world…"
Julio Santillan Aldana
Responsible of the open access journal Biblios
E-LIS Editor for Peru

"The Eprint Statistics feature is an impressive new addition to E-LIS. It presents clear and immediate data on use of documents in the repository, something every author wants to see. I've found myself checking the statistics on my documents regularly and have also discovered that it's a very effective recruitment feature for E-LIS; colleagues who have never deposited in E-LIS have done so very soon after seeing the Eprints Statistics function in action".
Andrew Waller
Author and E-LIS Editor for Canada

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For any information about the implementation do not hesitate to contact us.

Best Regards,

E-LIS Team

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.