This seminar is aimed at those responsible for collecting, analysing and making recommendations based on usage data, whether in a library setting or within a publishing organisation. This online seminar will take place over two days 11th (12:30 start) & 12th November (9:00 start), for more details please visit the programme section below.
When
Tuesday, November 11, 2025 – 12:30 GMT
to
Wednesday, November 12, 2025 – 12:30 GMT
Where
Online
United Kingdom
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Event Summary
Those with a responsibility for overseeing the management of library collections have more access than ever to statistical data to assist with evaluation and to justify return on investment, and enhancement of the user experience. Understanding the library’s use of this data is also vital for publishers. Advances in standardisation led by the COUNTER initiative have made statistics more accessible and reliable as a basis for decision making.
Increasingly, libraries are being asked to make extremely difficult decisions about the priorities for their spending within a strategic context. Although this presents huge challenges, it can also be an impetus to change the ways in which services are provided. Publishers need to be aware of what statistics librarians are looking at and how they are being used to inform collection development.
This seminar provides illustrations by expert decision makers on how statistics are used to make strategic decisions. It will also present the challenges, such as demonstrating value and presenting data to different audiences. Future developments within the field will also be addressed, together with considerations of how these will impact on decision making in the future, for example new approaches to analytics. There will be discussion on how the development of open access is impacting on usage behaviour and influencing considerations for collection development.
Delegates will have the opportunity to reflect on the role of statistics in the broader context of further and higher education, and the culture of assessment that is becoming increasingly prominent within the sector. Delegates will be encouraged to actively participate throughout the day.
Who should attend
This seminar is aimed at both those in libraries who need to analyse or interpret usage data to support decision making about resources and collections, within a strategic context. It will be of interest to those with a responsibility for overseeing the management and evaluation of library collections in the further and higher education sector, and who need to demonstrate impact and value to senior leadership teams, rather than those involved in the operational role. It may also be of interest to those working in other areas of the scholarly information industry. It will also be of importance to publishers who need to understand the collection development decisions of their customers.
Please note: This seminar does not cover the practical aspects of collecting usage data, or of creating reports. These topics are covered by the UKSG Practical Usage Statistics for Librarians seminar, a hands-on workshop on gathering and manipulating usage statistics.
Both days will be recorded and available for playback on demand post event for registered delegates.
We welcome participants from all corners of the globe to join our seminars, however speakers and topics are generally UK focussed, if you have any doubt about the suitability please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Learning Objectives
Delegates will:
- gain a greater insight into the wider environment and context in which usage statistics decision making is carried out and new approaches to this
- learn about ways in which library resource usage statistics have been used by staff in university libraries to inform decision-making processes
- develop an understanding of how usage statistics can be used to demonstrate value from a publisher perspective
- gain knowledge of the impact of open access publishing on usage statistics and demonstrating value
Attendee Information
The webinar tool we use is Go to Webinar. To test your system ahead of time visit https://support.goto.com/webinar/system-check-attendee
Accessibility
UKSG wants to provide the best possible experience for all our delegates, making presentations as accessible and inclusive as possible.
Our intention were possible is to strongly encourage our speakers to provide auto generated closed captioning for both live and recorded events as well as to make sure their slides as easy as possible for all people to read. In addition we can provide auto generated transcripts post event for each of the recorded sessions.
If you have particular accessibility needs or questions about this seminar/webinar, we welcome you to contact events@uksg.org
Recording
The sessions will be recorded and available to all registered delegates only after the event, so if you unable to join us live or want to review any presentation this will be available.
Programme
- Day 1 – 11 November
- Day 2 – 12 November
Time
Programme
Speakers
12.30
Introduction & welcome
All times stated are GMT
Etienne Olsina
BibliU
Anja van Hoek
Programme Manager Amsterdam University Press
See Biography
Anja van Hoek has recently joined the organisation
Her previous role was as a Program Manager Online Resources at Brill, where she is overseeing Brill’s online publishing program. A major part of her role is the coordination of the various aspects – relating to Brill’s online publishing program – between publishing, sales and marketing. Working closely with the Data and Platform Teams within Brill’s Operation department she plays an important role in monitoring usage data.
12.40
COUNTER: the community standard for usage metrics
Not sure why we need normalised metrics? Unclear about the difference between an Investigation and a Request (or how those relate to views and downloads)? Can’t understand why metrics are missing from your standard views? This session will clear up the confusion with an introduction to the COUNTER Code of Practice for usage data.
Tasha Mellins-Cohen
COUNTER Metrics
See Biography
Tasha Mellins-Cohen, Executive Director at COUNTER Metrics and Founder of Mellins-Cohen Consulting, joined the scholarly publishing industry in 2001. She has held roles within learned societies and commercial publishers across operations, technology, editorial and executive functions, while donating time to key industry initiatives and bodies such as UKSG, ALPSP and STM. In 2020 she started consulting in response to requests for help in developing and implementing OA business models in not-for-profit groups. In 2022 she stepped up from volunteer to Director at COUNTER Metrics, the standard for usage metrics, alongside her consulting work
13.20
Under the COUNTER when usage data is harder to find
COUNTER stats are great for the majority of our journal and ebook holdings, but what about the resources which don’t supply COUNTER stats? As libraries are increasingly asked to give access to a range of non-traditional resources such as maps, business data and law sites, as well as specialist journals and magazine titles the job of gathering and analysing usage can be complex. This session will look at some of the other places Edge Hill goes hunting for usage, including directly from publishers websites, as well as using data from EZProxy to gain evidence of usage, as well as addressing some of the drawbacks to these methods.
.
Ruth Smalley
Edge Hill University
See Biography
Ruth is the Subscriptions and Licensing Manager at Edge Hill University. Ruth has had a varied career with roles in PR and teaching, before a career change took her to working in public libraries and then moving into higher education libraries. Ruth has a particular interest in evidence based collection decisions and is never happier then when she has a problem that requires a new spreadsheet or Power BI dashboard! Ruth lives in Warrington and enjoys making jewellery and clothes in her spare time.
14.00
Break
14.20
Using COUNTER with other data sources to answer essential library questions
In this session we’ll use real files to crossmatch usage (from a COUNTER Title Report) with pricing (from a publisher price list) to calculate cost per use. You’ll learn about named ranges, useful Excel functions, and how to use a pivot table.
Tasha Mellins-Cohen
COUNTER Metrics
See Biography
| TBC. |
15.00
Break
15.20
OER and the Impact of Affordable Course Materials on Students
The presentation will review survey findings of students indicating the consequences for their education when they can’t afford to purchase their course materials for their classes. The Affordable Learning Solutions (AL$) initiative is an institutional program for campus faculty, staff, administrators, and students to choose no/low-cost course materials, including Open Educational Resources (OER). The presentation will provide an overview of MERLOT’s AL$ initiative, showcase Open Educational Practices for faculty adopting OER, and will review the economic value for students and the institution. The AL$ resources, tools, and templates are available for UKSG adoption and customization
Gerry Hanley
MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching)
See Biography
| Gerry Hanley Ph.D. is the Executive Director of MERLOT (www.merlot.org) and SkillsCommons (www.skillscommons.org) which provides free, online educational content in academic and workforce disciplines. At California State University Long Beach, Gerry is the Director of the Center for Usability in Design and Accessibility. Gerry’s previous positions included Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Technology Services at the California State University Chancellor’s Office, designing and delivering strategic initiatives for improving teaching and learning with technologies for 23 campuses serving over 450,000 students. He received his BA, MA, and PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in Experimental Psychology. |
15.50
Summary & close
Time
Programme
Speakers
9.00
Welcome
Nathan Newey
Brown Books
See Biography
Having worked in academic libraries for almost 30 years, I have had a change in direction and now work for Browns Books who are a leading supplier of monographs and e-books to all types of educational establishments in the UK and beyond. My role as Regional Area Manager for London still enables me to interact with libraries ensuring that Browns gives the best possible service to its customers.
Emma Nolin
Head of Information Resources and Scholarly Publishing Malmo University
See Biography
Emma Nolin is the head of Information Resources and Scholarly Publishing at Malmö University Library and has been at Malmö university since 2018. Operations in this department are among other things, print and electronic scholarly information recourses, Open access and scholarly publishing.
9.10
Different kinds of usage data to support information provision at Karolinska Institutet University Library
I will share a recent pilot we’ve done for a cross-comparison of usage data for acquisitions using COUNTER denials, ILL requests, citations, purchasing suggestions and more. For read access, KI Library has multiple levels of service we can provide for our users at different price points. With many different kinds of usage data that can potentially support decision making in this area, we wanted to see how we could use different kinds of usage data together in a more systematic way to catch emerging information needs
David Hahne
Karolinska Institutet
See Biography
David is an e-licensing librarian at Karolinska institutet – a medical university in Stockholm, Sweden. He joined KI Library as part of the acquisitions team in 2021. He has an interest in using data analysis and visualization to aid decision making and support the transition to Open Access.
09.50
Engagement ‘depth’ – using e-book usage data to try to improve student success
Universities have a lot of student data and ‘Learner Analytics’ can be used to try to improve student outcomes. Engagement data (e.g. attendance/ use of VLE) can give us ‘obvious’ red flags, but it can be difficult to quantify the ‘depth’ of student engagement. Library/ learning resources information may help with this. We know that use of our online e-book platform (BibliU) correlates with module outcomes. We will talk about how this data can be part of targeting comms, support and interventions for individual students and different student groups during the semester, to try to increase student success
Valerie Cox
Coventry University
See Biography
Originally a researcher in muscle physiology, Dr Val Cox has worked in academic lecturing/ leadership roles at Coventry University for 26 years. She transitioned to leading initiatives around timetabling/ attendance and engagement, including managing aspects of the Covid pandemic and associated switch to online learning. Her current role is Associate Director of the Strategic Planning and Insight Office, where she continues to develop use of student engagement data to provide ‘real time’ monitoring. She helped to implement the BibliU e-book platform and continues to work closely with Library colleagues to analyse the useage data
10.30
Break
11.00
The Open access citation advantage in the context of scholarly publishing at a higher education institution
Šárka Erben Johansson
Malmö University
See Biography
Šárka is a research librarian at Malmö University. Her areas of work are bibliometrics, publishing strategies and research support. Her main role is in supplying the university’s research units and researchers with bibliometric reports and analyses to support evidence based decision making.
11.30
Beyond the Numbers: Evaluating Ebook Usage Statistics in Practice
How can ebook usage statistics be turned into meaningful insights? In this session, I will present our routines for evaluating usage data, highlight common challenges, and show how the results inform decision-making and collection development..
Frida Rosengren
Lund University
See Biography
Frida Rosengren is a librarian at Lund University, working with electronic media acquisition and evaluation, publication support, teaching for doctoral and undergraduate students, and applying artificial intelligence in library services. She holds a PhD in Biology and a Master’s in Library and Information Science, combining subject expertise with broad experience in scholarly communication and digital resources
12.00
Summary & close
Feedback
The variety of perspectives made it really interesting
Previous delegate
Fantastic lineup. Learned from all presenters. A couple who really stood out were Tasha Mellins-Cohen, Aron Lindhagen, and Andrew Knight. Their presentations were particularly relevant to my work and they had information on specific, practical processes and tips.
Previous delegate
Intense and information-packed. The sessions were just long enough and being split between two days made it easier to focus (and also schedule around work).
Previous delegate
Registration
Monday, October 6, 2025 – 09:00 BST – Tuesday, November 11, 2025 – 09:00 GMT
£ 70.00
+14.00 VAT
Member
£ 82.00
+16.40 VAT
Non-Member
NB: UKSG reserves the right to alter or vary the programme due to events or circumstances beyond its reasonable control without being obliged to refund monies.
Contact
General queries – events@uksg.org
Please take a look at our code of conduct
Cancellations
The closing date for cancellations is Friday 17th October, after which date cancellations will not be eligible for a refund. Cancellation should be sent into writing to events@uksg.org. All registrants will be sent a link to the recording after the event for their personal viewing.
The UKSG terms and conditions can be found here