Annually I compile COUNTER usage statistics of our licensed e-resources to contribute to our library’s national reports and to update our local e-resources statistics dashboard. Until last year this was a manual process requiring a significant amount of time. I would need to log in to a separate administrative portal of over 60 platforms, to download Excel spreadsheets of usage data for over 350 resources. Because we report based on our fiscal year (June 1 start) I would need to download two calendar-year spreadsheets and then combine them into one. Compiling all of the disparate data into three categories of e-journals, e-books, and databases, and then condensing it into bite-sized pieces (e.g., bar charts of use per month, top 10 e-journals) for our stakeholders took the longest amount of time. I frequently had help downloading the reports and was often rushed in condensing the data, arguably the most important part of even having the data.
Last year we subscribed to a service (RedLink) that would fetch those reports for us, using the SUSHI protocol. Setting up the service took a while, to discover the correct server URLs for each platform, requesting the creation of an API key that would give the service permission to download reports on our behalf, and then to convey that data to the service provider. I was elated that my annual compilation took far less time, and I could better enjoy the process.
This spring I was alerted that the service was going out of business. I considered several other commercial SUSHI harvesting services, but they were significantly more expensive than our subscription to RedLink had been. It seemed to me to be poor stewardship of our library’s funds to request a more expensive service in the midst of a global pandemic and uncertain budgetary future. I started looking for freely available services and was discouraged at EBSCO’s R5 Harvester tool (requires Microsoft Access and a Windows computer, neither of which I currently have). I was soon delighted, however, to come across Melissa Belvadi’s COUNTER 5 SUSHI harvester.
I installed it on my Mac with ease, downloaded the vendor lists file (a starter file, with many of the vendors we use) and manually entered the SUSHI credentials into the tool. Within an afternoon I was able to start fetching reports and adjusting the credentials for some finicky vendors. I really like that I can export into a single file all of the vendor credentials, so that I can share that file with another member of our team, and they can import it and fetch reports.
All of the data presented on our e-resources stats dashboard for the latest fiscal year was generated from this tool. I am so grateful to have a freely available tool that is also easy to use. Thank you to the team that built it!
Screen shot of the COUNTER 5 SUSHI harvester tool
