Re: Gathering stats on catalog use

Karen,

   Here's an example of our Aleph OPAC stats:
http://www.fcla.edu/FCLAinfo/stats/aleph_opac_stat/opac_stat_0607/opac_cumulation_1106_sim.html
You can see previous reports at:
http://www.fcla.edu/FCLAinfo/stats/aleph_opac_stat/firstpage.html

  -- Michele
On Tue, 20 Feb 2007, Karen Coyle wrote:

> Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 17:16:54 -0800
> From: Karen Coyle <kcoyle_at_KCOYLE.NET>
> Reply-To: Next generation catalogs for libraries <NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU>
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: [NGC4LIB] Gathering stats on catalog use
>
> I posted about this on my blog, but it didn't get any response so I
> figure I need to ask it here. I want to see some catalog use stats; not
> a full-blown scientific study, nor an in-depth study of usability. What
> I want is to see what features of online catalogs get used, and to what
> degree. I know this is tricky because different catalogs have different
> offerings, and that defaults have a huge influence on what features
> actually get used. But I would like to create some way for people to
> easily submit use stats to a common pool, for our general edification.
> What I have in mind are things like:
>
>   * What search types are available? Which of these search types is a
>     default? How often is each search type used?
>   * If there is an advanced search page, how often is it used?
>   * If there are sort options, what is the default and how often are
>     all of them used?
>   * What is the default display, and how often is each display option
>     used?
>   * How many records/screens are displayed on average?
>   * If there are facets, how often is each facet type selected?
>   * What system are you using? (Vendor, brand)
>   * What type of library is it? (public, academic, special)
>
> It seems to me that we need some hard data before we start talking in
> any detail about design options. My personal experience in working on
> OPACs is that most features are used rarely, and that user behavior is
> not always what you would expect. My best example of this latter was the
> data that we got on screen displays in MELVYL. When MELVYL was a telnet
> catalog, you got about 1-2 records per screen, and people looked at an
> average of 2.5 screens. There was a review display with 20 items, and
> people looked at an average of 2.5 screens of that. When it became a
> web-based catalog, you got about 10 records per screen, and people
> looked at an average of 2.5 screens. I saw somewhere that on Google
> people look at an average of about 2.something screens. So what people
> look at seems to have little to do with the amount of whatever it is on
> the screen, but is based on some other factor that we can observe even
> if we can't explain it. That's the kind of data I'm looking for.
>
> kc
>
> --
> -----------------------------------
> Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
> ph.: 510-540-7596
> fx.: 510-848-3913
> mo.: 510-435-8234
> ------------------------------------
>

~~~~NOTE EMAIL ADDRESS CHANGE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michele Newberry, FCLA, fclmin_at_cns.ufl.edu