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RSS feedsHot on the heels of successful tests of the Sushi protocol for delivering
usage reports, MPS
Technologies has launched the ScholarlyStats service
to help librarians analyse the usage of e-journals and databases. MPS and
supporters of Sushi (Standardised USageHarvesting Initiative) both say
the initiatives are complementary.
Companies trialling Sushi said they had successfully completed testing at the end of last year. Sushi is based on Project Counter developments, which have defined a commonly accepted set of definitions, data processing rules and formats for usage reports from suppliers, and aims to allow the automated delivery of reports.
MPS insisted ScholarlyStats was not a Sushi spoiler. Company spokeswoman
Martha Sedgewick said: “Once Sushi has become widely adopted,MPS intends to use
it to further automate our processes and pass the cost savings on to our
customers.”
But she added that there could be a long wait. “It is likely to take some time
for the Sushi standard to be agreed and ratified by
Niso
[National Information Standards Organisation], and then the key question is
whether publishers and information
providers will be willing and able to provide reports using Sushi. The speed of
uptake will become clearer over time, but to be useful it needs to reach
critical mass.”
Jenny Walker, VP of marketing at Ex Libris , a founder of the Sushi initiative, said the two technologies were not rivals. “I don’t believe there is any competition between Sushi and Scholarly-Stats,” she said.
“ScholarlyStats wil be able to use Sushi to harvest stats from Sushi-compliant providers. In turn, sites with an electronic resource management tool such as Verde will be able to download the stats to their system using Sushi.”
MPS has announced partnerships with Swets and Thomson Scientific to deliver the service and is also in discussion with electronic resource management suppliers. Click here for more IWR coverage on SUSHI.
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