Brown, Christopher C. “Going All-Electronic and Keeping Track of It: Clickthrough Statistics for Online Document Usage.” Presentation given at the 2011 Missouri Government Documents Conference, 7 June 2011, Columbia, MO.

1. Christopher C. Brown, University of Denver
cbrown@du.edu
2011 Missouri Government Documents Conference

2. URLs in the OPAC: Docs and non-docs

3. 


97% of current GPO catalog records contain
links to online content
Library ILS systems provide circulation stats
for books, but have no ability to provide stats
for online clickthroughs
Library directors increasingly believe
depository collections are not used, because
we cannot provide them the most relevant
stats

4. 


Documents Received
Circulation Statistics (from our ILS reports)
GPO PURL Referral Statistics (see
http://www.fdlp.gov/component/docman/cat_view/178-collectionmanagement/249-purl-referrals for individual library statistics; see also
http://fdlp.gov/collections/building-collections/618-purl-referralsreporting for discussion of recent issues)

5. 




Visits to online docs URLs by our users – we
are clueless!
How many times URLs are visited by our users
What titles are visited by our users
What agencies are most popular with our
users
We don’t know the whole picture

6.  To
track online government
document clickthroughs when
accessed via the online catalog
oNot possible to capture every use of government info by
our users
oBut is possible to capture all clickthroughs via the OPAC

7. 




Justify our depository status to administrators
Assist with item selections
GPO cannot provide them
URL maintenance
“Knowing where they’re going” is always
helpful

8. 

Not all government URLs are PURLed
In 2004 I counted over 1,400 servers hosting
government documents to which our catalog
pointed. We can’t expect 1,400 sites to
provide us statistics.

9. 


Nearly 600,000 documents URLs in our
catalog
Many of these not in CGP
“Aggressively” added URLs

13. http://library.du.edu/clickthrough/index.php/clicks/?type=gov&url=

17. Fiscal Year
Total Docs Bib Recs
Bib Recs with URLs
Clickthroughs to Docs
FY2004
358,215
43,307
3,809
FY2005
373,200
55,508
4,504
FY2006
388,610
62,374
4,686
FY2007
401,454
103,021
5,217
FY2008
429,122
159,543
6,342
FY2009
711,315
463,121
7,660

18. 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
We can provide meaningful stats to the
library director
We can see high-use and low-use areas
We can tell if users benefit from our special
projects
We can do reactive URL maintenance
We can see turnaways and other problems
We can see search engine attacks

20. 
Older Docs Content Gets Visits
FY04
FY05
FY06
FY07
FY08
FY09
Total Clicks
3809
4504
4686
5217
6342
7660
Up to 10 years
3542
4155
4170
4369
4996
5600
percent
93.0%
92.3%
89.0%
83.7%
78.8%
73.1%
Over 10 years
267
349
516
848
1346
2060
percent
7.0%
7.7%
11.0%
16.3%
21.2%
26.9%

21. Comparison of Online Access with Physical Circulation of
Documents

24. Project
Topographic Maps
NASA Technical Reports
GAO Reports (older)
LexisNexis Digital
Hearings/Committee Prints
Readex Digital Serial Set
OSTI Reports
URL Count
Coverage Dates
Tracking Time Span
URL
Clicks
Unique
URL
Clicks
% Unique
Accessed
456
1991 – 2001
Sept. 2003 – June 2009
101
76
16.6%
24,825
1976 – 2001
April 2007 – June 2009
310
263
1.06%
9,559
1976 – 1999
Aug. 2007 – June 2009
184
161
1.68%
57,200
1850 – 1995
July 2007 – June 2009
1027
851
1.49%
248,134
1817 – 1948
Sept. 2008 – June 2009
239
205
0.08%
19,901
2002 – 2006
July 2008 – June 2009
476
375
1.88%

25. 

Two approaches: Proactive approach
My approach: Reactive approach – with nearly
half-a-million docs URLs in our OPAC, we
can’t afford to be proactive.
Error rate
FY
Clicks
Errors
Rate
FY04
3809
202
5.30%
FY05
4504
231
5.13%
FY06
4686
299
6.38%
FY07
5217
217
4.16%
FY08
6342
179
2.82%
FY09
7660
177
2.31%
FY10
1542
38
2.46%

27. From August 24 through September 7, 2009 the PURL server was down.
We were able to track each of the turnaways from government information
and amend our records as needed.
Access
Denied!

28. 
“Direct access to online version”

29. 


CUIL (http://www.cuil.com/) CUIL attacked many OPACs – at least Millennium OPACs.
We were attacked two times. Our project uncovered the attacks!
August, 2007 and February, 2008
The CUIL clickthroughs were subsequently omitted from the project stats

30. 









Project hosted on stable server (such as library Web
server).
Should be able to handle long URLs – up to 700 characters.
Prepended URL sends request to library server.
Included in prepended URL is cataloger-supplied 3-letter
code of URL type (ex: gov, cou, ran – any 3-letter
combination that may be needed in future).
Server records date/time, IP address of requestor, 3-letter
code of URL type, and URL requested.
Server redirects user to desired URL.
Reporting mechanism available to gather clickthroughs.
Archiving function available to archive stats.
Ability to view archived records.
Secure login for authorized users.

31. “Adding URLs in Bulk at the University of Denver.” Presentation given at the Spring 2002
Depository Library Council Meeting, 24 April 2002, Mobile, AL. View PoierPoint
presentation: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/proceedings/02spc.html
“Statistics for Online Document Use.” Presentation given at the Fall 2003 Depository Library
Conference, 22 October 2003, Arlington, VA. Published in the Proceedings of the 12th
Annual Depository Library Conference, Oct. 19-22, 2003.
Brown, Christopher C. 2004. “Knowing Where They're Going: Statistics for Online
Government Document Access through the OPAC”. Online Information Review 28 (6), 396409. DOI: 10.1108/14684520410570526
“Local Access Statistics for Federal Documents: Tracking Web Page and Online Catalog
Usage.” Presentation given with Susan Xue at the Fall 2004 Depository Library
Conference, 20 October 2004, Washington, DC. Published in the Proceedings of the 13th
Annual Depository Library Conference, Oct. 17-20, 2004. [view]
“Enhancing NASA Fiche Records with Links to Online Content.” Presentation given at the
Fall 2007 Depository Library Conference, 17 October 2007, Arlington, VA. [view]
“Tracking Online Document Usage from the Catalog: Experiences from the Field.”
Presentation given with Stephanie Braunstein, Susan Kendall, Liza Weisbrod, Jennifer
Gerke, and Shane Cole at the Fall 2009 Depository Library Conference, 19 October
2009, Arlington, VA [view].
Brown, Christopher C. 2011. “Knowing Where They Went: Six Years of Online Statistics via
the OPAC for Federal Government Information.”College & Research Libraries 72 (1), 43-61.
http://sites.google.com/site/librariancorner/url-clickthrough-project