Charles R. McClure cmcclure@lis.fsu.edu
Director, Information Institute, and Francis Eppes Professor.
Introduction
A number of states have a statewide online portal or metasearch applications that provide access to a range of licensed databases and distributed resources. Agencies that operate such services confront a range of issues in compiling comprehensive use statistics of these databases because the various database vendors frequently provide non-compatible and/or non-comparable usage statistics. It is also the case that consortial arrangements with multiple partners and library types may have a number of different data use and reporting requirements. It is essential to have comprehensive statewide use statistics to better understand user engagement with the databases, to justify to governing bodies the value and impact of the database, and to determine which databases and services are most used, by whom, and for what amount of time (among other indicators).