Throw out the hash marks! Dig deeper with reference statistics
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Accompanying handout at http://tinyurl.com/delayhanson. Hawaii Library Association Conference, Nov 5, 2010. Free, open-source, or low-cost tools can give you reports about frequency of questions, types of questions, history of responses, and more. Logs of reference interactions provide FAQs tailored to patron questions, and we can learn from the expertise of our colleagues by building on their responses to similar questions.
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Throw out the hash marks! Dig deeper with reference statistics
- 1. Friday November 5, 2010 Throw out the hash marks! Dig deeper with reference statistics Christian DeLay & Margot Hanson Hawaii Library Association Conference Royal Hawaiian
- 2. Does this sound familiar? Due to budget cuts, the administration proposes eliminating reference services past 5pm. How can we demonstrate the necessity of evening coverage?
- 3. Does this sound familiar? We have a patron who didn’t receive articles the librarian on a previous shift sent him. How do I recreate the search results?
- 4. Does this sound familiar? We just hired a new librarian and need him to start solo on the reference desk ASAP. How do we educate him regarding the types of questions we commonly receive?
- 5. Does this sound familiar? My co-worker is the expert in this subject area, but she’s not here today. How can I answer the reference question?
- 7. New & Improved Reference Stats! We’re going to talk about LibStats, a free, open-source tool that we use to track reference statistics at Golden Gate University. We’ll show you how we’ve used it and how it could be useful to you!
- 8. Itty bitty text; try the online demo! [see your handout]
- 9. What can LibStats do for you? Assessment Continuity of service Training resource Knowledge base
- 10. Assessment
- 13. Question Format Questions Percentage Email 80 10.60% IM 78 10.30% In person 444 58.70% Phone 155 20.50% Totals 757 100.10% Questions by Question Format05-02-2010 through 08-21-2010 Data collected & processed by Aira Lipson, Golden Gate University
- 14. Questions by Question Formatprogression of use since IM introduced
- 15. Hour Questions Percentage 10 - 11 AM 39 4% 11 - 12 PM 90 9.20% 12 - 1 PM 95 9.70% 1 - 2 PM 98 10% 2 - 3 PM 95 9.70% 3 - 4 PM 138 14.10% 4 - 5 PM 132 13.50% 5 - 6 PM 100 10.20% 6 - 7 PM 98 10% 7 - 8 PM 56 5.70% 8 - 9 PM 30 3.10% Totals 976 99.70% Questions by Time of Day01-06-2010 through 04- 16-2010 Data collected & processed by Aira Lipson, Golden Gate University
- 22. Reference Portal
- 25. Thank you! Questions? cdelay@ggu.edu mhanson@ggu.edu handout online: tinyurl.com/delayhanson slides: slideshare.net/muumuulibrarian
Editor's Notes
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- CD This method will record number of contacts, perhaps date and time if you design your form well. But how many of these were students? How many were reference vs. “copier needs more paper” questions? How long do staff spend on questions? What are your busiest hours of the day? Your busiest day of the week? How many telephone vs. email inquiries? & Etc. [Poll audience about reference statistics methods]
- CD We were going to also talk about our ref blog, procedures wiki, workshop/instruction session log, but we’ve only got 30 minutes. If you’re interested in those things, come talk to us afterward.
- CD This is a free service called LibStats. We use it to keep track of reference interactions. This allows us to provide continuity of reference service across shift changes. We can also use it as a training tool, and knowledge base. We use it to generate statistics and reports to document our services. (briefly talk about each element on page)
- CD For example, LibStats has allowed us to: provide reference statistics to [ask Steven--DOE?], adjust our reference schedule, and make other informed decisions based on quantitative assessment. We can provide continuity of reference service through shift changes, by documenting interactions and answers to patron questions for future reference. Because the data is searchable, we can use it to train new hires, and spot trends that let us create or refresh other research aids such as FAQs, LibGuides, and other patron services.
- MH Now we’ll show you some examples of assessment options
- MH LibStats comes with the option to generate reports based on captured data. The reports are pre-defined, but the date range can be customized, and includes all data points present in each category.
- MH Sample report for statistics by question format, for a specific date range. This data can be copy and pasted to Excel and manipulated to create charts and graphs.
- MH This is an example of a chart depicting the percentage of questions answered during the Summer 2010 term, by question type. We can see that the majority (59%) of our reference questions are in-person, with online in second place at a combined total of 21%, and phone making up the last 20%. We can use this to compare progression of IM reference use, for example. Since this is a relatively new service, we can use this to track the adoption rate of the new service by our patrons. This gives us a justification to retain this service when compared to the maintenance costs.
- MH Dec. 13, 2007 IM first instance Group by quarters
- MH This slide shows patron interactions broken out by hour of day. Aside from giving us a precise snapshot of patron usage by hour of day, the reference team was able to use the data to convince our director to let us go home at 8pm rather than 9pm. ;) [flip data]
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- MH Using this tool allows us to keep up with what’s going on that day, that week, that term, as a current awareness tool. We can continue reference questions that began with the previous shift or a shift three days ago. We can be forewarned if a pernicious patron or awkward assignment crops up. Each entry can be edited or annotated later, if you forgot something or another co-worker has an additional suggestion related to the interaction or reference question. We keep track of multiple questions (followups) by the same patron in our entries.
- CD Because it’s database driven, we can use LibStats to search questions (and answers) by keyword to locate suggested resources for unfamiliar or infrequent topics. It also serves as our IM chat log. As a new hire, [Margot] re-enacted previous reference interactions to prepare for future questions. [Mention Amy Stabler’s report: trends, FAQs, collection development]
- CD Searching past reference interactions is so helpful! Search terms must have more than three characters, but added truncation operators are a work-around. Here’s a search for WorldCom
- CD Search terms are bolded WorldCom is hard to find now that’s the company has disappeared, but with LibStats it’s never gone!
- CD There’s info on your handout for implementation. Mention future version you’re working on
- MH We have lots of other stuff we use to complement LibStats for our reference services. Here’s a quick look. Come talk to us later if you’d like more information.
- MH top bar CD sidebar Talk about free services!!!
- CD easy to implementcommunication tool