Comparing usage between dynamic and static e-reference collections

Abstract

2015),"Serials use in post graduates' dissertations of pharmaceutical sciences: collection building by citation analysis", Collection Building, Vol. 34 Iss 3 pp. 94-101 http://dx.(2015),"A collection explosion: finding our collection roots and examining how we got from there to here", Collection Building, Vol. 34 Iss 4 pp. 136-143 http://dx.Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:226685 [] For AuthorsIf you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this article was to present the results of a quantitative analysis that compared usage levels between an e-reference collection that has experienced continual updated content and growth and an e-reference collection that has not experienced any recent changes. The aim of the study was to determine quantitatively if e-reference collections with dynamic content experience greater levels of usage compared to e-reference collections that are static in both size and content. Design/methodology/approach -E-reference data were separated into a dynamic collection and a static collection. Usage for e-reference belonging to the dynamic collection was compared to usage of e-reference belonging to the static collection. The number of e-reference was obtained by simple count. Additional statistics tracked include the number of viewings. A linear regression analysis was used to determine the strength of the linear relationship between collection size and usage. Findings -Results indicate that e-reference collections that continue to grow in both size and content also continue to experience year-to-year increases in usage. E-reference collections that remain static in size and content experienced a decline in usage. A linear regression analysis indicates the existence of an extremely strong linear relationship between dynamic content and usage. A weaker linear relationship was calculated for static content. Originality/value -To this author's knowledge, this research is the first to systematically and quantitatively compare usage levels between e-reference titles from growing collections to collections that have not had any new titles added recently.