Springer is launching a new free analytics tool www.realtime.springer.com which provides multiple visualizations of the usage that is generated worldwide by Springer's online products, including journals, books, images and protocols.
Realtime.springer.com aggregates the raw data on downloads of Springer journal articles and book chapters in real time from all over the world, and displays them in a variety of interactive visualizations such as: a map showing where the downloads are coming from, a constantly updating keyword tag cloud, and a visualization of total downlaods. In addition, a search feature shows a chart of the downloads and the 'Top Five Most Downloaded' list for every journal or book.
The results provide book authors and journal editors with information on how intensively their content is used. They gain insight into what topics are trending at the moment, and which areas of the world are currently looking at what type of topics in Springer books and journals. Librarians get a clear overview of where Springer content is used in the many fields.
Realtime.springer.com currently receives input from the information platform SpringerLink with nearly five million documents from about 41,000 eBooks, 1,160 book series, 2,524 journals and 173 eReference works.
Additionally, the tool receives feeds from the SpringerImages database with more than 2.7 million images and from SpringerProtocols, the database of reproducible laboratory protocols in the life and biomedical sciences.
"The dimension of context that this service provides to our authors and readers gives them a constantly updated understanding of what the rest of the community considers valuable," said Brian Bishop, Vice President Platform Development at Springer.