[Publib] databases---keep them or not!!

[Wolter, Virginia]

Elizabeth,
 
I was on the database selection committee at my library system.  One big criteria is whether the database was actually being used via statistics on number of searches over time.  One thing we found is that each company may have different ways of determining, some are straight forward, some will only give you stats for the bundle of databases they sell you, some just don't keep track either consistently or well.  So it becomes a little art (Do we think patrons will use this database?; Will we be able to make them aware?; Is it easy to use?; Is it the only thing out there that fill this need?; etc) and science (number of hits in a given time period).  
 
Some are real obvious winners (Ancestry.com/the antiques database/infotrac) and you keep them.  Others, are more tricky, and may require being pushed by the staff and ultimately don't stay in the collection.
 
Hope my less than hard and fast answer gives you some help,
 
Ginny,
Toledo-Lucas County Public Library

 
________________________________

From: Elizabeth Speigle [mailto:espeigle at nngov.com]
Sent: Thu 10/2/2008 10:20 AM
To: PUBLIB 
Subject: [Publib] databases---keep them or not!!



Good morning,

 

There have been some conversations on publib regarding marketing of databases. Does anyone use a return on investment strategy to determine whether to keep them?  Or perhaps some sort of metric that indicates an acceptable amount of hits for the type of database (more general reference or specialized)? Thanks VERY MUCH in advance! Elizabeth

 

Elizabeth K. Speigle

Assistant Director

Newport News Public Library 

700 Town Center Drive Suite 300

Newport News, VA  23606

Ph. 757.926.1350

Fx. 757.926.1365

www.nngov.com/library

 

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