The document discusses building a staff-facing tablet application called the Space Usage Census Toolkit to help library staff collect, store, analyze, and visualize data about how patrons use library spaces. The application aims to improve existing manual counting practices by providing an easy-to-use interface for staff to track headcounts, activities, and furniture usage in different areas over time. The project team is taking a phased approach, first focusing on replacing headcounts before expanding the application to additional assessment areas and releasing it as open source software.

1. Building a staff-facing tablet application for library assessmentJason CasdenJoyce ChapmanNorth Carolina State University LibrariesCode4lib 20111

2. Problem statementMany libraries perform manual counts of people in spaces doing something at some timeThe process involves tedious collection mechanisms, lots of paperwork, and much room for errorThere is no coordinated effort to help departments analyze their data2

3. Our solutionAn open source tablet-based app (well, toolkit) to aid library staff in assessment of how patrons are using library spaces.To aid in: the gathering, storing, exporting, analyzing, and visualizing of data across spaces/activities/time and around events.3

4. Why do we care?With data about use/activity patterns in different library spaces we canImprove staffing modelsMake informed purchasing decisions (technology, furniture)Arrange space (quiet study, collaborative)Take an evidence-based approach to planning future library spaces4

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6. Activity trackingAre some spaces more conducive to group study or individual study?What’s the ratio of usage of laptops versus public computers versus no computers?Which furniture is most popular in which areas and why?6

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8. Data analysisFragmented dataDecentralized data storage Uncontrolled vocabularies= High barriers to analysis and data reuse8

9. Two-part projectAddress a current need: improve ease of data collection and reporting for our current headcount practicesExpand to new areas of interest (activity counts, analysis and visualization, data importing/exporting) and share the toolGoal: to encourage an evidence-based approach to physical spaces9

10. What is the system?10

11. What is the system?11

12. What is the system?12

13. What is the system?13

14. What is the data?14

15. How are we starting?HeadcountsFocus on improving existing practicesClient-first developmentTo make sure it will workStrict user requirements15

16. Some requirementsVery high interface responsivenessAccommodate uneven network accessSupport future expansion to activity countsOpen Source release16

17. Why web-based?Multi-platform supportRapid expansion of tablet marketOpen source releaseDifficulty in deploying native iPad applicationsLicenses, ad-hoc deployment pains, etc.Encourage community use and contributionsDesign doesn’t preclude multiple clients in the future17

18. Why not web-based?Interface performance/responsiveness is crucialHandling uneven Wi-Fi coverageData stability18

19. How to resolve this?Browser databaseAsynchronous data aggregationtouchstart/touchmove/touchend events19

20. Browser storageSQLiteWeb SQL DatabaseGoogle GearsIndexed Database API (Indexed DB)HTML5 Storage (localStorage)20

21. Web SQLPossibly soonto be obsoletehttp://www.w3.org/TR/webdatabase/18 November 2010: “This document was on the W3C Recommendation track but specification work has stopped. The specification reached an impasse: all interested implementors have used the same SQL backend (Sqlite), but we need multiple independent implementations to proceed along a standardisation path.”Gears end of life plans announced 19 February 2010Why?It works nowWebKit support (for now)iOS, Android21

22. persistence.jsvar Session = persistence.define('Session', { startTime: "DATE", collectionLength: "INT” }); var Person = persistence.define('Person', { timestamp: "DATE" }); Session.hasMany('people', Person, 'session');22

23. Data synchronization23

24. Design iterations24

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29. What are we trying to replace?CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. DipeshSoneji. http://www.flickr.com/photos/dipeshsoneji/4734289230/29

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34. Future directionsOpen Source release: Summer 2011Legacy dataBuild out analysis dashboard toolsActivity countsReference transactionsSubjective/Observational space usage dataGrant assessment34

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36. Project team Jason CasdenJoyce ChapmanRob RuckerHill Taylor36

37. Thanks!Jason Casden – jason_casden@ncsu.eduJoyce Chapman – joyce_chapman@ncsu.eduhttps://github.com/cazzerson/SpaceUsageCensusToolkithttp://www.lib.ncsu.edu/dli/projects/spaceassesstool37