Why Click to Count?

Each year, library staff review the online journals we subscribe to in order to assess which ones to retain and which can be canceled. Usage data plays heavily into those decisions. With data from the vendors and publishers, we calculate cost-per-use, cost-per-download, and other ratios that factor into a bigger decision about whether or not to continue subscribing to a journal.

This data is only captured when a user clicks on a link to a journal article (or e-book or streaming video…). If you upload PDF copies of articles instead of providing direct links, the usage data is not captured.

think about this:

Twenty-five students open a pdf that was pre-loaded into canvas. No usage is captured! Thus, the library doesn’t know how extensively the title was actually used, and even though it did get used, that title may end up on a list of journals to cancel. Now, instead imagine 25 students each clicking a link from canvas to an article on the website of a publisher or database. Each click is usage that will count toward the value of keeping a library resource!

How to make things count

To ensure that every use of an online journal gets counted, please do not share copies of articles directly with students. Instead, provide a link to the article on the website of the publisher or database.

To ensure that students will be able to access the article from off-campus, you can paste the URL of an article accessed through the UNT Libraries into the box below and we will create a link for UNT users that will prompt an off-campus user to login through the UNT Libraries before taking them to the article.