This document summarizes a presentation about collecting and analyzing library usage data and sharing it openly. The presentation discusses the types of data libraries collect, including circulation transactions, search queries, and e-resource usage. It shows examples of visualizing and analyzing the data. It also explains how the University of Huddersfield released two million circulation transactions as open data under Creative Commons, and the potential benefits of further sharing data between libraries. Barriers to sharing data between institutions and benefits of doing so are discussed.

1. I Know What You
Borrowed Last Summer…
Dave Pattern, Library Systems Manager
University of Huddersfield
d.c.pattern@hud.ac.uk

2. Preamble
• Presentation available at:
– www.slideshare.net/daveyp/
• Please remix and reuse this presentation
– creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0
• Have you remembered to switch your
phone on?
– please feel free take photos, record audio,
blog, tweet (@daveyp), etc

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

5. tinyurl.com/c8qm8h

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

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

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

9. Data collected
• Circulation transactions
• OPAC
– keywords used for searches
– items viewed
• OpenURL resolver requests
• Access Control
• E-resource logins and usage
• …and anything else we can think of!

10. Keyword cloud

11. Keyword cloud
Average number of clicks per month

12. Keyword suggestions

13. Borrowing suggestions

14. Course specific new book lists

15. Personalised suggestions

16. Borrowing profile
Average book loans per month (2002-2008)

17. Borrowing suggestions
Average number of clicks per month

18. Borrowing range profile
recommendation features added to OPAC at start of 2006
Number of unique titles (bib#) borrowed per calendar year

19. Books per active borrower
recommendation features added to OPAC at start of 2006
Average number of books borrowed per active borrower per calendar year

20. E-journal data (alpha)

21. Item usage

27. Non & low usage analysis

28. Google Analytics

29. Data visualisations

30. Keyword search visualisations

31. Open Data

33. Linked data
• “There are data in every aspect of our lives,
every aspect of work and pleasure, and it's not
just about the number of places where data
comes, it's about connecting it together. And
when you connect data together, you get power
in a way that doesn't happen just with the web,
with documents. You get this really huge power
out of it. So, we're at the stage now where we
have to do this.”
- Sir Tim Berners-Lee (TED Conference, 2009)
http://tinyurl.com/bxua4r

34. Usage data release
• Prompted by the JISC Tile Project
• http://library.hud.ac.uk/usagedata/
– aggregated data for 2 million circulation
transactions, covering around 80,000 titles
– recommendation data for over 37,000 titles
– simple XML format
– Open Data Commons / CC0 licence

35. No strings attached
• CC0
– “…a legal tool for waiving as many rights as
legally possible, worldwide”
• Open Data Commons
– “…a philosophy and practice requiring that
certain data are freely available to everyone,
without restrictions from copyright, patents or
other mechanisms of control”
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0
http://www.opendatacommons.org

36. Usage data release
• Released on 12th Dec
– converted to RDF by Patrick Murray-John at
University of Mary Washington 2 days later!
– Talis podcast at http://bit.ly/z6yjF

37. What next?
• What are the barriers to releasing/sharing
data…
– technical, logistical, moral, political,
institutional, privacy …?
• What are the benefits…
– better business intelligence for librarians
– creation of innovative new channels
– enrichment of existing channels
– end-user empowerment & personalisation …?

38. JISC Mosaic Project
• Collecting usage data from multiple
academic libraries, including…
– Lincoln University
– University of Sussex
– University of Dundee
– University of Wolverhampton

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