(Editor’s Note: This article is adapted by the author from a paper she presented at MLA 2019.) Introduction Ebooks have become the preferred format for our patrons at Wayne State University. Many health sciences ebooks are available through ebook packages, in addition to individual ebook purchases.
How are these ebook packages used? Do they satisfy our users’ ebook needs? Do the departments with a larger number of users use ebooks more? These types of questions always call for answers.
This study intends to investigate these questions by examining the usage of some major medical ebook packages to which the library subscribes.
Method The study analyzes the usage of ebooks available through the following health sciences resources: ClinicalKey by Elsevier, LWW Health Libraries by Wolters Kluwer, and McGraw Hill ebooks and Access series, from 2016 to 2019. The usage statistics are COUNTER compliant BR2 reports. The subject is assigned to each book according to publishers’ lists or cataloging records, reflecting the main focus of a book. Some subjects have been merged into broad subjects/specialties to align with Wayne State University School of Medicine (WSUSOM) academic programs. Nursing ebook usage is not included in this analysis.
Usage reports from each resource are analyzed by access year using Microsoft Excel and compiled to identify the most accessed subjects/specialties in the past four years. An overall analysis of ebook usage from all resources is performed using Microsoft Excel as well. Departmental information is obtained from the WSUSOM website, student affairs office, and residency programs.
User Profiles At the time of this study, WSUSOM has 22 basic and clinical science departments. The number of faculty, master’s and PhD students, and residents are used to build user profiles for each department. The five largest departments by number of faculty, students, and residents are Pediatrics, Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences, Emergency Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Surgery.
Ebook Usage Analyses Using the described methods above, usage of ebooks from all resources are analyzed and summarized in the chart below. The subject of Medical Education covers all basic medical sciences subjects, including anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, etc., and shows the highest usage. The library added a basic sciences ebook bundle to its ebook subscription at the end of 2018, which may have resulted in the increased usage in Medical Education in 2019.
Figure 1. Ebook Usage by Broad Subjects 
The most accessed ebook subjects are identified and listed in the table below.
Overall Analysis The overall analysis focuses on the clinical sciences. The chart below presents the correlation between the size of SOM clinical science departments and the ebook usage in corresponding subjects.
Figure 2. Correlation between Department Size and Ebook Usage 
Discussion Usage of basic medical sciences ebooks is the highest on all ebook platforms included in this study. Usage of ebooks in various specialties differs from one another. Ebooks focused on a particular specialty are better covered by subject collections, such as LWW Health Library Emergency Medicine collection and McGraw Hill Access Emergency Medicine. Some other specialties are also well covered by general resources such as ClinicalKey and Access Medicine.
The “larger program, higher usage” hypothesis is not supported by the correlation shown in Figure 2. The following factors may contribute to this failed assumption:
- Health sciences ebooks available on other platforms available at WSU are not included in this study.
- Certain specialties may rely on information resources other than ebooks.
- Resources included in this study do not equally cover all specialties.
- Users may not be aware of ebook availability.
To better understand users’ needs and coverage of current library ebook resources, more work needs to be done. Here are a few ideas:
- Analyze usage of health sciences ebooks through other providers, including PDAs, firm orders, etc.
- Seek user input on ebook resources, especially users in departments that have lower ebook usage in this study.
- Proactively promote library resources and increase awareness of ebook availability.
