What is Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) Metrics

Currently, libraries are passing through a challenging phase of progress as the entire scholarly publishing process is getting through the publisher's remote servers from the stage of production to users accessing the information. The server log created in this process measures their usage in several dimensions. As libraries strive to become more user-centric, usability factor becomes increasingly important for the development of collection as well as services. Consequently, the need is arising to explore methods to evaluate the usefulness of new type of resources also since they became integral part of the library collection. The subscribing libraries, organizations and consortia have been relying on the data for quantitative as well as qualitative assessment. The chapter discusses about the characteristics of electronic information, genesis of server logs and transformation into usage metrics and also the role of relevant standards in formatting the usage standards and advantageous features. The objectivity of data mining and research applications of usage metrics in supporting the library management as well as establishing the credibility of authors, institutions, journals or databases etc. are highlighted in this chapter.