Highwire Press was at MLA and I had a really nice conversation with their representative. Personally, I believe Highwire does one of the best jobs of providing online access to electronic journals. Their individual journal sites are relatively easy for the average consumer to navigate and their services for institutions are great and help make the task of managing the administrative duties of multiple journals a little easier.

The administrative duties for managing electronic journals can be a real pain in the neck depending on the journal and the online platform. Some journals are notorious for late or missing issues (yes even online) and some platforms are quirky and difficult to use from the patron end or to manage from the institutional end.

One thing that drives up a wall with online journals (besides the ever mysterious and hard to find subscription number) is the lack of journal usage statistics on some journals. I had always thought that it was a problem with the platform (such as Highwire) that not all journals listed had usage statistics online. I have since learned that is actually the journal's decision not to include usage statistics not the platform's decision.

Justifying our existence and our subscription dollars demands that we collect usage statistics by all means possible. Less and less people are coming into libraries and more are using the library resources from their home, office, classroom, etc. That is fine, that is great, that is what we want to happen. We want people to use our services in the most convenient way for them. We want to the library to come to them on their time and one way to do that through electronic resources. However, we CANNOT count their usage of our resources if the very resources we have refuse to provide usage statistics. Yes, I realize there are ways around it by getting some sort of click count on titles by using a little web programming, but that shouldn't be necessary.

It was said that these journals (who don't provide usage statistics) are afraid that if they do, we will cut them when their usage is low. I have news for them, one way to quickly get on the chopping block is to continue not providing usage statistics. Without the hard numbers I can not justify purchasing the product. Perhaps the online journal is free with the purchase of the print, therefore I should be happy with just having free online access and not worry about whether people are using it. Not so! When they are getting it online, how can I justify purchasing the print journal when I see it getting used less and less frequently in the library. That is where the online usage statistics would be helpful. I would notice that while actual library use of the printed copy is down, online usage has increased. However, if there are no online usage statistics, the most likely result is that journal eventually gets cut.

I wonder why many journals haven't discovered the potential pitfalls of not providing online usage statistics. I also wonder if any librarians have asked these journals why they don't provide usage statistics and if they could begin to do so. I for one, will be contacting these journals I subscribe to and asking them to include usage statistics. It can't hurt to ask, and if they activate it, then it can only help both my library and their journal.