Counting usage for Tables of Contents

Release 5.1 brought usage tracking for books and reference works into line with that for other data types like journals and multimedia, but there are still some complexities. This post explains how usage of Tables of Contents (ToCs) should be counted.

First up, only ToCs for books and reference works can accrue usage metrics under the terms of Release 5.1. That means users viewing journal issues and so on cannot be counted towards usage metrics.

Why ToC views don’t trigger usage counts for chapters

Under Release 5.1, most metrics are only counted when a user interacts with an Item – in the case of a book, that’s the chapter (Data_Type=Book_Segment). A ToC counts as a Book_Segment: a user landing on the ToC means the publisher may count 1 Total_Item_Investigation against the ToC’s unique identifier.

If the user tries to access other chapters from the ToC, for example by clicking on a link, they are either

• Successfully able to access the chapter (count 1 Total_Item_Investigation, and possibly 1 Total_Item_Request if the chapter is delivered immediately as full-text)
• Denied access to the chapter (count 1 No_License or Limit_Exceeded, depending on the reason for the denial)

If a user has the option to download the whole book as an EPUB or PDF directly from the ToC, the publisher should only count usage or denials if the user actively clicks the download button.

A worked example

A user lands on the ToC for a book with 10 book segments. A whole book download is also available. The user clicks through to the Foreword, which is free to read. They return to the ToC and attempt to download the whole book EPUB, but are denied access as their institution does not subscribe. The metric counts should be:

• 3 Total_Item_Investigations (2 for the ToC, 1 for the Foreword)
• 2 Unique_Item_Investigations
• 1 Total_Item_Request (for the Foreword)
• 1 Unique_Item_Request
• 9 No_License (for the 9 book segments the user was not authorised to access)
• 1 Unique_Title_Investigation
• 1 Unique_Title_Request