At some point before the year 2010, hundreds of millions of dollars in annual publisher revenue will be determined by "usage statistics," measurements of how many times a piece of online content was visited, searched, downloaded, paid for. However, as a standing-room-only audience of publishers of mostly STM content were told by a panel of publishers and librarians at an AAP-sponsored conference last fall, the industry is not there yet.
In his kickoff remarks, Kent Anderson, publishing director at the New England Journal of Medicine, noted that following a period of early enchantment with the potential of usage statistics, "The only benefit so far is to help sell site licenses." In response to a question, he added, "It's not really usage statistics which we give librarians, just download data. The rest we consider 'customer information,' which we keep for ourselves."
A different view was expressed by Christopher M. McKenzie, director of sales, North and South America, Wiley Interscience, John Wiley & Sons. "By telling us how users access information via a variety of payment and access options, usage data help inform our strategies for growing our business," he said. Specifically, the data help the company make new content decisions as well as decisions about acquisition and technology investments.
Easily collected electronically, usage statistics are putting publishers face to face with the end customer. The panel agreed that currently usage statistics tell how customers behave, but not why they do what they do. Moreover, problems arise not only from a lack of standards, but also the lack of a consistent business model.
Both Kathlene Kehoe, a librarian from Columbia University, and Carol Bekar, senior director, Knowledge Integration Resources, at Bristol-Myers Squibb, described how cost-cutting has moved them toward increased dependence on electronic content. Nonetheless, Bekar described the difficult process of deciding whether to go the subscription or "buy by the drink" route in supplying her corporate users with content "at the point of need." "Usage statistics help us manage our contracts with publishers and provide transparency in licensing discussions so that we pay for what we use," Bekar added.
The panel agreed that, with all their problems, usage statistics already help publishers set prices and librarians justify budgets. And standardization and especially accuracy are becoming increasingly important. "We have had some strong discussions with certain publishers about the accuracy of their statistics," noted Lou Ann Di Nallo, who is in charge of content management at Bristol-Myers Squibb. "Quality control is critical here," Anderson agreed, "Because the day of usage statistics as the basis for pricing is coming."
The AAP will shortly publish a volume entitled Online Usage Statistics: A Publisher's Guide, for which pre-purchase is available. Contact Sara Brandwein at the AAP.
