ACRL Survey Information

Owned by Christina Hennessey
Last updated: Dec 04, 2024 by Christina Hennessey
4 min read

Table of Contents

Essential Resources

Reports in Analytics

Location: /Shared Folders/California State University Network/Reports/ACRL IPEDS Official ULMS folder

  • These reports can help you get started. You will still need to edit and customize the reports to account for your institution's practices and data.

  • Not every ACRL question can be answered using Analytics, and some reports will only give you part of the data you need.

 Important

  • There are instructions in the description of each analytics report. Read them before running or editing the reports.

  • Copy the reports to My Folders before running them. You can copy the whole folder at once! Copies made in consortium folders will be deleted.

  • To run the report, click on Open instead of Edit. Clicking on Open opens the Prompts for the report before the report is run.

Editing/customizing the reports

  • There are some fields, such as location and resource type, that may require each institution to customize the report.

  • Some prompts are being provided for these fields but be sure to read and interpret the ACRL/IPEDS instructions in order to make best use of the prompts.

Data requirements

  • The analytics reports for lines 61A and 61B (e-usage) will only report on the data you have already harvested via SUSHI or manually uploaded to Alma.

Subfolders

  • There is one folder labeled Run in the IZ. Most of the reports are in this folder. Login to your institution's Alma instance to run these reports.

    • Physical counts for Lines 40a, 42a and 43a are in this folder.

  • There is a second folder labeled Run in the NZ. Only a few reports are in this folder.

    • The reports in this folder are for counting e-resources (lines 40B, 42B, 43B and 41.) These reports are run in the NZ to include e-resources shared in the NZ.

    • If you need access to NZ analytics, contact Christina Hennessey

Recommended Practices for Consistent Reporting from All Campuses

  • Run Library Collections (lines 40-44) reports on July 1, or as soon after as practical. 

    • The analytics reports used for lines 40-44 provide a snapshot of the library's collection on the day that the reports are run. Download and save the output of these reports.

    • There is no simple way to filter out items/portfolios added after July 1 and add back items/portfolios withdrawn after July 1.

  • Count document delivery, ILL, and pay-per-view expenses in Line 22 (e.g. Reprints Desk, Get It Now)

    • ILL costs that can't be separated from the cost of the ILL software should be counted along with Bibliographic Utility costs in Line 25

  • Count DDA Short Term Loan (STL) expenses in Line 22

  • Count DDA triggered purchases in Line 20 (and 20a for ebooks)

  • Include ECC resources in Library Collections counts

  • Gather and load your own usage reports (manually or using SUSHI) for all resources, including ECC and other SDLC resources

    • Usage will NOT be centrally loaded to Alma to avoid duplication, as vendors do not distinguish the license source when reporting usage on their entire platform

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: Report COUNTER 5 and/or COUNTER 4

  • For line 61A, run "CalState - 61A. Total E-book & E-media Usage" in "Run in the IZ" folder. For line 61B, run "CalState - 61B. E-serials Usage." These reports use COUNTER 5 metrics TR_B1 and TR_J1. Make sure that you have these reports harvested/uploaded to Alma for all vendors that provide you with these e-resources.

  • From 2023, ACRL no longer provides separate lines to report COUNTER 4 usage. If you choose to add COUNTER 4 usage to COUNTER 5 usage for lines 61A and 61B, use the corresponding reports in the "Run in the IZ/COUNTER R4 Usage" folder. The metrics that were preferred in the past instructions for COUNTER 4 are BR1 and MR1. If BR1 and MR1 are not available, BR2 and MR2 can be reported. If COUNTER 4 usage and non-counter statistics are added to lines 61A and 61B, add notes to the lines.

Q2: 21. Ongoing Commitments to Subscriptions 

  • Line 45 (External Contributions from Consortia / Network(s) / System Office) was removed from the ACRL Benchmark survey in 2023.

  • Since 2023, all campus libraries will add the Chancellor Office’s allocated funds on behalf of the libraries for the ongoing subscription for the Electronic Core Collection, etc. in Line 21. Ongoing Commitments to Subscriptions) in the ACRL survey. How to determine the value for Line 21 will be demonstrated at the Analytics Open Forum on Wednesday, December 4 [recording will be linked here] and instructions will be distributed in December 2024.

    • If the library receives access to e-collections, catalog platforms, discovery services, or other e-resources through one or more centrally funded systems or consortia arrangements for which it does not pay fully and/or directly (for example, funding is provided by the state on behalf of all members), enter the amount paid by external bodies on its behalf. If the specific dollar amount is not known, but the total student FTE for the consortium and amount spent for the academic members are known, divide the overall amount spent by the institution’s share of the total student FTE. The consortium or system office may make a value-per-FTE metric available for all members of the consortium.

    • Do not include expenses paid through an annual consortium fee. Report those expenses under line 25 “All other operations and maintenance expenses.”

  • Please continue to add the dollar amount for your campus under the Systems/Services/Bibliographic Utilities column (in the spreadsheet) to your own library expense in Line 25 (All other operations and maintenance expenses).

 

Webinars

Thursday, February 8, 2024 - 2024-02-08 Analytics Open Forum on ACRL

Wednesday, October 28, 2020 - eCAUG presentation on Using Alma Analytics for ACRL/IPEDS annual library statistics

Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - Notes from 2017 webinar (The webinar recording is no longer available as it is out-of-date. We do still include the notes from the webinar for historical purposes)