Sheffield

Big Brother in the library Dave Pattern, Library Systems Manager University of Huddersfield [email_address]

Preamble
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Contents
Supermarkets
Virtual footprints
Data collected at Huddersfield
Using data analysis to improve services
Sharing data

A long, long time ago…

www.flickr.com/photos/hippie/2476662922/

tinyurl.com/c8qm8h

www.guardian.co.uk/money/2005/sep/27/ethicalmoney.lifeandhealth

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1572626.ece

www.flickr.com/photos/mikewarren/48237822/

www.flickr.com/photos/jay-chilli/2178457837/

in a digital world, we leave virtual footprints wherever we go

University of Huddersfield

Facts and figures
Student population
about 20,000 (full-time and part-time)
University Library
just under 400,000 physical items
over 700,000 loans per year

User data collected by the library
Turnstile System
when you entered the library
Books
which items you borrowed and when
Computers
which PCs/Macs you used and for how long
which web sites you looked at

Anonymous data collected
Library Catalogue web site
keywords used for searches and the number of results found
which books were looked at
which features and tools were used

What the data is used for
improving the search facility
analysing search trends
Turnstile System
find out how well the library is being used (e.g. weekends and holidays)
has the refurbishment of the library made any difference to the number of people using the library?

What the data is used for
Books
which books do we need extra copies of?
which books can we get rid of?
which books are being borrowed by specific groups of students?
create borrowing suggestions for students in the Library Catalogue web site

library non-usage analysis

Keyword cloud

Keyword suggestions

Borrowing suggestions

Personalised suggestions

how is it done?

1) find out who’s borrowed the book Alice Brian Cathy

2) find all the other books they borrowed… Alice Brian Cathy

3) find the common titles… Alice Brian Cathy

people who borrowed
also borrowed

so, was it worth it?

Range of stock being borrowed

Books per active borrower

sharing usage data

Usage data
Nov 2008: Released of aggregated and anonymised book usage data and book recommendation data ( link )
2 million book loans and 80,000 book titles
Apr 2009: Aggregated keyword search data and linked keywords ( link )
3 million searches on the library catalogue
Open Data Commons Licence
no restrictions on how the data can be used

what next?

What if…
…every library shared its usage data?
…could we use that data to improve the “student experience”?
can we encourage people to play with that data and create cool stuff?

Thank you! www.slideshare.net/daveyp/ www.daveyp.com/blog/

Sheffield

by daveyp on Apr 21, 2009

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