Statistical Analysis, Data Visualization, and Business Intelligence Tools for Electronic Resources in Academic Libraries

Analytics, business intelligence, and data visualization have an increasingly important space in the changing assessment landscape of academic libraries. Today, most academic libraries are spending a significant amount of their total expenditure budget on electronic resources. While they are high-value assets for modern libraries, the expensive annual subscription cost and continuing price increases of e-resources also make them a substantial budgeting burden. It is therefore essential to have a clear statistical view of the trends and patterns in price changes for e-resources and vendors. This paper focuses on three major topics vital for developing such a view: first, the e-resources landscape and the need for evidence-based decision-making, analysis, and reporting; second, the methodology applied in a statistical analysis and data visualization research project, as well as business trends and patterns in the field of libraries’ e-resources; and third, business intelligence tools available for this type of analysis, including low-cost options such as Excel and Redlink, and premium options such as Tableau.