The National Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIS) Committee on Usage Statistics is organising a one-day conference - Usage Statistics: New Developments and Practical Applications - to be held October 21, 2008, at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The third in a successful series launched in 2004, the conference will look at some of the new developments that have emerged since 2006, as well as the current practical applications of usage statistics.
The conference will open with an update on the progress made by the two key standards for the creation and harvesting of usage statistics - Project COUNTER and SUSHI. It will focus on the current relationship between COUNTER and SUSHI and how these standards will move together in the future. In addition, publishers and librarians will present case studies on how they currently gather, analyse and make informed decisions based upon the data that usage statistics provide. They will highlight the pitfalls that must be avoided throughout the process so that the statistics are not unintentionally misused.
The implications of three new related projects will also be discussed. This includes NISO's development of identifiers that will allow for the precise recognition of an institution and its relationships with its various libraries, departments, offices, etc., and two initiatives that are attempting to provide usage-based metrics for the scholarly evaluation of articles and journals (Project MESUR and Usage Factor). The meeting will close with a visionary discussion on how usage statistics can be improved and used in the future to help institutions make informed decisions.
In addition, the NFAIS is also organising a one-day programme - Building the Base for Authoritative Content: Digital Resources in the Humanities. Scheduled for October 20, 2008 at the state-of-the-art Graduate Center of the City University of New York in Manhattan, this meeting seeks to provide a better understanding of the digital initiatives and newly-emerging web-based resources in this field. While the meeting has a humanities information context, the programme content is applicable to all information providers and librarians.
Founded in 1958, NFAIS is a premier membership organisation of more than 60 of the world's leading producers of databases, information services, and information technology in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, business, and the arts and humanities.
