Usage Statistics in Context: Develop Effective Assessment Practices Through Collaboration

Usage statistics in context is best understood when the given three word choices this author consciously makes: customer, value, and library professional. The term “library patron” implies a captive audience, whose only recourse for information is the library. Library customers, especially in an era of desktop access to information, have before them a wide selection of information services, of which the library is but one. Information consumers will usually fit both learning about the research process and information gathering itself into the more inclusive activities of knowledge acquisition or knowledge creation. Within the constraints of completing information gathering in good time and to good effect, the quality and breadth of an information service must be balanced against the consumers’ perceptions of efficiency and ease-of-use. When selecting a service, the intelligent consumer makes a choice that combines lowest cost in terms of time and effort with highest worth in terms of meeting the information need.