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Library Quarterly Report FY17 Q4: April-June 2017

Database Usage: ScienceDirect On the Rise

Unmediated use of the library's 12 full-text subscription databases held steady. Resources ASTM Compass, Knovel, and ASCE Library continue to be top draws for self-service access. However, the emerging story is ScienceDirect from Elsevier. ScienceDirect journals are cost prohibitive, even for the most-used sources, and VDOT use of Elsevier journals spans many titles instead of being concentrated in a few. To deal with this the library created a deposit account for a-la-cart article purchases. When VDOT employees visit ScienceDirect they see the VDOT Logo and the can search more than 12 million articles and book elements. 

Screen shot of ScienceDirect "Order" option.

When a patron sees an article they want, they click "Order Document" as shown here and their request is sent to library staff who download and deliver the article.  As a result, use of ScienceDirect has increased steadily.
 
Subscription Downloads
Self-service database access to full text for articles, papers, standards and ebooks continues to thrive at VDOT. With 12 subscription databases now available, the library has seen document downloads continue to outpace checkouts of physical books from the shelves. The tables show the number of downloads per month (below) from each database, and s the trend over the past year (right), which remains steady.
Database use: July 2016-Jue 207
 
Subscription Downloads By VDOT
  April  May  June  Total 
ASTM Compass  457  202  317  976 
 Knovel  171  176  312   659 
Non-Subscription Downloads (EOS Clickthroughs)  190  167  239  596 
ASCE  140  75  83  298 
Books24x7 *  109  90  75  274 
TRR   56  44  47  147 
  EBSCO Business Book Summaries  18  10  31  59 
EBSCO eBooks  8  7  20  35 
Other (miscellaneous journals)  10  18  5  33 
ScienceDirect  5  2  15  22 
EBSCO Business Source Complete  0  4  3   7 
Monthly Totals  1,164  795  1,147  3,106 

Note: Statistics for Books24x7 were lost when VDOT migrated to a new platform. Statistics above represent the monthly average for the past 2 years.

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