This collection of papers provides a comprehensive coverage of issues relevant to evaluating e‐serials for acquisition, retention and usage. The main audience is academic libraries as the majority of case studies and authors are from this sector. However, the range of experience of the authors makes this work a useful tool for the novice and the experienced practitioner. The scope of each paper is clearly defined, and the index enables dipping into the work to read on specific issues and topics. There are articles covering the rationale behind collecting statistics, their scope, coverage, relevance and usefulness. These articles are helpful for all library serials practitioners, regardless of sector, and the language used does not limit their relevance solely to academic libraries. Special library practitioners will find the case studies and articles on the decision‐making processes for determining which statistics will be collected, and how they will be used, easy to apply to their situations. There are case studies which include medical libraries in universities, and these are particularly applicable to all health libraries. Even public libraries will find the articles on the decision‐making processes and usefulness of various statistics applicable to their assessment of e‐resources.
All practitioners will appreciate the first paper which addresses the issues of standardisation and dissemination of statistics, and which include definitions of some of the terminology for statistical data associated with e‐journals and databases, which facilitate understanding other papers in this collection. The project for maximising e‐journal usage data is specifically academic‐library oriented, and this is the audience which will most benefit from these in‐depth studies. However, the results may well produce parameters applicable on a wider basis, and so will be awaited with interest.
The authors of all articles have set out clearly their topics, parameters, and then their discussions. Throughout the work, the reader is constantly aware of the user‐focus as well as the management requirements of the collection of statistical data on e‐serials. The various interests – users, libraries, publishers, authors and vendors – which are collaborating and/or competing at various stages in the collection development process, prevent the reader from coming away with a simple answer to this issue.
The paper on the results of the 2005 CCALD survey results looking at the collection budget distributions and the staffing changes over the previous five years with the increase in e‐resources clearly showed the range of statistics collected, the lack of consistency, and revealed a need for a whole of organisation approach rather than a piecemeal collection of statistics by individual library areas. This paper illustrated issues such as the differences in staffing allocation for the management of e‐resources, which have been raised in earlier articles, and which have arisen from the gradual evolution of e‐resources.
With all this information now available, and in one volume, libraries have the tools and parameters for more effective decision making on e‐resources, the statistics needed to make decisions on evaluation of the resources, the staffing required for management of these resources and the presentation of the data to their audience in a more consistent manner.
I found this a surprisingly readable work, with wide applications, and which provided much food for thought on the necessity for valid statistical data which can be applied effectively to meet the organisation's and clients' needs. I would recommend this work to all library practitioners involved in making decisions about e‐resources – their use, acquisition, evaluation and budgetary and staffing requirements – as whilst most of the information has been drawn from experiences throughout the academic sector, it is applicable across the library industry. The clarity of the articles also makes them a valuable tool for library students in understanding the use, acquisition and evaluation of e‐resources. It is certainly a collection of papers to which I will refer not just for my own information, but to assist with explaining why and how I am making decisions on e‐resources.
