Skip to Main Content

Database Committee: Limit Exceeded & No License

Limit Exceeded & No License - Platform & Database

Limit Exceeded & No License - Publication Type

Helpful Definitions

Access denials are sometimes known as turnaways. Two varieties of access denial metric are tracked in Counter 5:

  • No_License: counted where a user is unable to access a unique content item because their institution does not have a license to the content.
  • Limit_Exceeded: counted where a user is unable to access a unique content item because their institution’s cap on the number of simultaneous users has been exceeded.

Both No_License and Limit_Exceeded apply when a user has successfully investigated an item, but has not been able to complete a request.

Scenarios

Scenario

Susan is researching the history of antibiotics on Publisher Platform Alpha. From a list of search results, she opens three article abstracts and two video records. Her institution has not subscribed to the video database and she is therefore denied access. The counts are:

  • Total_Item_Investigations: 5
  • Unique_Item_Investigations: 5
  • No_License: 2
  • Limit_Exceeded: 0

Susan repeats her attempt to access one of the video records five minutes later. The counts are:

  • Total_Item_Investigations: 6
  • Unique_Item_Investigations: 5
  • No_License: 3
  • Limit_Exceeded: 0

High No_License counts may suggest to Barbara that she should investigate the costs of subscribing to the video database.

Scenario
Susan is researching the history of antibiotics on Publisher Platform Alpha. From a list of search results, she opens three article abstracts and two video records. Her institution has a concurrency-limited subscription to the video database, and Susan’s usage exceeds that cap. The counts are:

  • Total_Item_Investigations: 5

There are four different types of search metric in Counter 5:

  • Searches_Regular: the number of times a user searches a database, where they have actively chosen that database from a list of options OR there is only one database available to search.
  • Searches_Automated: the number of times a user searches a database, where they have not actively chosen that database from a list of options. That is, Searches_Automated is recorded when the platform offers a search across multiple databases by default, and the user has not elected to limit their search to a subset of those databases.
  • Searches_Platform: the number of times a user searches a database, regardless of the number of databases involved in the search.
  • Searches_Federated: the number of times a search is run remotely through an API.

Scenario
Susan is researching the history of antibiotics on Publisher Platform Alpha. She runs a search for “history AND antibiotics”. The counts are:

  • Searches_Regular: 1
  • Searches_Automated: 0
  • Searches_Platform: 1
  • Searches_Federated: 0

For a database like this, the cost per use calculation may be more dependent on searches than on fulltext downloads – this is dependent on library practice.

  • Unique_Item_Investigations: 5
  • No_License: 0
  • Limit_Exceeded: 2

High Limit_Exceeded counts may suggest to Barbara that she should investigate the costs of increasing the concurrency cap for the video database.

Coverage Notes

Coverage is from 09/01/2021 - 04/30/2022

The above data comes from the Title Master Report and the Database Master Report.

©2022 Houston Community College Libraries