Throw out the hash marks! Dig deeper with reference statistics
Christian DeLay & Margot Hanson
Hawaii Library Association Conference
Friday November 5, 2010 -- Royal Hawaiian
LibStats demo: http://www.servergoon.com/libstats
LibStats download: http://code.google.com/p/libstats/
LibStats community: http://groups.google.com/group/libstats
Gimlet: http://www.gimlet.us (Gimlet is the “freemium” Software as a Service successor to LibStats)
Recommended Reading:
Breitbach, W. (2009). Libstats. Charleston Advisor, 11(1), 44-45.
De Groote, S. L., Hitchcock, K., & McGowan, R. (2007). Trends in reference usage statistics in an academic health sciences library. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 95(1), 23-30.
Feldmann, L. M. (2009). Information desk referrals: Implementing an office statistics database. College & Research Libraries, 70(2), 133-140.
Garrison, J. (2010). Making reference service count: Collecting and using reference service statistics to make a difference. Reference Librarian, 51(3), 202-211.
Garrison, J. S. (2008). Helping libraries count: Reports and examples of uses. Retrieved September 7, 2010. http://software.lib.ipfw.edu/2950.0.html
Gerlich, B. K. (2007). Introducing the READ scale: Qualitative statistics for academic reference services. Georgia Library Quarterly, 43(4), 7-13.
Logan, F. F. (2009). A brief history of reference assessment: No easy solutions. Reference Librarian, 50(3), 225-233.
Philips, S. M. (2004). The search for accuracy in reference desk statistics. Community & Junior College Libraries, 12(3), 49-60.
Welch, J. M. (2007). Click and be counted: A new standard for reference statistics. Reference Librarian, 47(1), 95-104.
Zweizig, D. L. (1984). Tailoring measures to fit your service: A guide for the manager of reference services. The Reference Librarian, 4(11), 53-61.
Hodgins, D. (2010). Dynamic space for rent: Using commercial web hosting to develop a web 2.0 intranet. Journal of Web Librarianship, 4(2), 115.
Be a Beta!
Christian is working on a (free!) web-based LibStats replacement that is intended to be easier to install and will feature an improved user interface. If you would like to be notified when it’s ready to test, sign up at:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/refstats-signup
(He promises not to sell your contact information or spam you with lots of goofy marketing emails!)
Presentation Slides
If you’d like to replay our presentation, visit: http://slidesha.re/yzfKRm