LIR Seminar: “Deciphering Data: Informing Decision-making, Transforming User Experience” December 5th

COUNTER provides the Code of Practice that enables publishers and vendors to report usage of their electronic resources in a consistent way. This enables libraries to compare data received from different publishers and vendors. A new release of the standard will go live February 2019 (containing January 2019 usage). This talk will give an overview of the new changes and how the new release differs from the current one. Focus will be on the new possibilities for evaluating e-resources based usage statistics.

Aidan Mooney completed his PhD in the Computer Science department of Maynooth University in 2005. The PhD was entitled “The Generation and Detection of Chaos Based Watermarks”. In 2006 he became a lecturer in the department.

He is the first year coordinator and departmental nominee on the Science Faculty Teaching and Learning committee. He has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses within the department. He is the MAP academic adviser for the department.

His research interests lie in the areas of Computer Science Education, Eye-tracking, Access learning and Image Processing.

In an age of big data, one of the key challenges facing all practitioners is how to minimise overload in the midst of increasing volumes and varieties of accessible details. In order to simplify the process, this presentation looks at different ways of sourcing, managing and presenting information within different contexts. The key starting point in navigating the maze is in asking the right questions. Identifying the questions allows you to create an appropriate data collection plan, which will focus your quest for answers. Once materials are collected, the analysis and presentation of information will vary according to who your target audience is. To demonstrate how data can be used to inform stakeholder decisions, some examples will be shared and potential risks associated in decoding data will be highlighted.

Accurate and reliable usage data are critical to support academic libraries in analysis and evaluation of e-resources. Comparable usage statistics help to demonstrate return on investment, to support policy and planning processes, to benchmark against comparable organisations and to support advocacy. Gathering, managing, measuring and analysing usage data to support each of these processes is imperative. However, such activities are time consuming and involve significant duplication of effort, with libraries globally replicating similar tasks. Jisc, a UK educational not-for-profit organisation for digital services and solutions delivers library analytics services which aim to save time, increase efficiency, improve data quality and support comparison and benchmarking. This session will outline recent Jisc developments to show how data, reports and visualisations are supporting new ideas and insights.

This paper will assess the role of data in in three recent collection management projects in the Glucksman Library, University of Limerick.  The importance of data in enabling key decisions and ensuring that future collection management decisions are evidence-based will be examined.  Particular attention will be paid to the extraction of data from the library’s LMS and the creation of a dataset in support of the Print Book Collection Review Project from 2015 to 2016.  The paper will analyse the data used in the project and how this data has been repurposed for use in other projects including the ARC (Automated Reserve Collection) Project and the Library Re-Sequencing Project.

How do we know how much shelf space our book stock takes up? The data is not recorded in the bibliographic record, so we measure the shelves, or we use a rule of thumb such as SCONUL’s figure of 36 books/metre. The first is labour-intensive, and while the second may help calculate future growth, it is hardly precise. As libraries everywhere shift their focus towards downsizing and reclaiming the space taken by redundant stock, the need arises for a simple and accurate system for measuring the potential space gain. I am conducting a small piece of research to address this by exploring the statistical relationship between an item’s physical description (MARC 300) and its thickness in millimetres. A rough correlation between pagination and thickness has already been established (Daehn 1982, 37), and this has been borne out by a preliminary survey of c. 500 items. The next phase of the project is to gather precise measurements of a larger sample (c. 4,000–5,000 items) to develop a more nuanced model. We will scan the barcode of each item, and record its thickness, height, and binding, together with measurements of the entire shelf. These details will be combined with MARC data, and the resulting dataset will be examined to establish what predictive value (if any) the MARC 300 holds. The end goal is to create a tool that will estimate the shelf space of any list of items. My 20-minute talk will give an account of this project, and will cover: Sampling methodology; Extracting pagination from MARC 300; Controlling for height and year; The problem of binding; Final phase: making it useful.

The IReL Monitoring Group (IMG) was founded back in 2005 and began its work in 2006. One of its primary roles has been to collate and analyse usage statistics on electronic journals, e-books, aggregators and databases. This paper will examine how the IReL consortium data has been collected and shared amongst members over the past 12 years. It will look at the practicalities of harvesting raw data and the process involved in storing and converting it into meaningful information. This paper will also reflect on what metrics were chosen and the reasons behind those choices. Cost Per Use (CPU) has been a predominant metric used in assessing the value for money provided by various collections and has been influential in the IReL decision making process over the years. However, other non-CPU factors will be touched upon. The IMG is always mindful of the important role that meaningful data plays in decision making. CPU can be viewed as a blunt instrument. Emerging measurements are sought to take into account impact factors and new models that are changing the publishing and funding landscape. The IMG workflows will need to develop ways of incorporating new requirements into its resource analysis and usage reporting.

The paper will report on the Collections Curation project in UCD Library, an evidence-based project undertaken by UCD Library to improve its print book collections. It will outline the approach taken by the Library, including the use of GreenGlass, a decision support tool designed to help libraries with deselection and print management. Academic library collections are organic, constantly growing and changing and need to be regularly reviewed and curated to maintain quality, align with existing and emerging research and teaching requirements, and preserve important and unique materials for future consultation and research. This project draws on quantitative and qualitative data gathered from Greenglass, our LMS, InfoHub, UCD’s primary management information system, and the UCD web site. We also draw on academic and library staff knowledge about the collections and the people who use them. By analysing this data we were able to evaluate user behaviour, user needs, and the collections themselves, and were able to develop selection, retention and withdrawal criteria for each area of the collection along with a detailed school profile setting out the specific needs of individual schools. We were also able to develop a strategy for managing our collections and library spaces over the long-term.