Understanding TeachingBooks Usage Statistics

Designed as a formative assessment tool to inform implementation and maximize value, TeachingBooks statistics follow the international e-resource standards from COUNTER 5 "to facilitate the recording and reporting of online usage statistics in a consistent, credible, and compatible way."

Monthly Reports

Identified contacts receive an automated report on the first of each month, providing the following data points for the past month and since the start of the current school year since August:

    COUNTER infographic Image from Release 5 for Librarians, Revised Edition, Section 3.1, page 5. Accessed August 15, 2020.
    Download Release 5 PDF
  • Total Investigations - counts whenever a user performs any action related to viewing a content item or title or viewing the item's metadata. For example, if a user does a search then clicks on two book titles, downloads a lesson plan for one title, and goes to a Meet-the-Author Book Recording for the other title, this counts as four Investigations.
  • Total Requests - counts whenever a user views or downloads any full content item, including viewing title and author pages, booklists, awards, series, specific audio, video, or text resources, and so forth. Requests are subsets of investigations. The chart from COUNTER is provided to help visualize the relationship between Investigations and Requests.
  • Total Searches - counts every user search of the database.
  • Total Sessions - counts new visits to the website or renewed use after complete, continuous inactivity for 5 minutes.

For more information about COUNTER 5, please see...
The Friendly Guide to Release 5 for Librarians

On-demand and By-request Reports

License coordinators have access to a statistical portal, and/or may request statistics for any specified time period in your license history.

Access to the online portal is only available to the coordinator(s) of a license. Go to Your License > Administrative Tools Just for Contacts > Download Usage Statistics. Note the Administrative Tools section only displays for authorized contacts, and one must be logged in to see this. To adjust license coordinators, contact us.

Coordinators may also request the TeachingBooks staff to run a report for you. Please provide details of your request by emailing us or call 866-269-5794 (Press 2) to discuss options.

Please Note: Individual use is not available. For more information, see our Privacy Policy.

TeachingBooks statistics follow the international e-resource standards from COUNTER 5 (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources) "to facilitate the recording and reporting of online usage statistics in a consistent, credible, and compatible way."

COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources). Accessed August 15, 2020. http://www.projectcounter.org/