1 / 19

Humanities by the Numbers: Evaluating Usage Data of Collection Areas

Humanities by the Numbers: Evaluating Usage Data of Collection Areas. Arianne Hartsell-Gundy (hartsea@muohio.edu) Masha Misco ( stepanm@muohio.edu) Jeffrey Hartsell-Gundy ( gundyj@muohio.edu) Miami University of Ohio Virtual Conference Webcast April 1 st 10:30-11:30am. Poll Question.

thimba
Download Presentation

Humanities by the Numbers: Evaluating Usage Data of Collection Areas

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Humanities by the Numbers: Evaluating Usage Data of Collection Areas Arianne Hartsell-Gundy (hartsea@muohio.edu) Masha Misco (stepanm@muohio.edu) Jeffrey Hartsell-Gundy (gundyj@muohio.edu) Miami University of Ohio Virtual Conference Webcast April 1st 10:30-11:30am

  2. Poll Question • What areas of responsibility do you have? Choose all that apply. a. Collection Development b. Technical Services c. Public Services d. Acquisitions e. Administration f. Subject Specialist g. Access Services

  3. Areas We Evaluated • Folklore (GR1-GR950) • Communication (HM1206-HM1231) • Linguistics (P1-P1091) • Composition and Rhetoric (PE1127-PE1497) • Theatre (PN1530-PN2096)

  4. Areas We Evaluated • Russian Orthodoxy (BL930-BL980, BR930-BR939, BX200-BX739) • History of Russia and East European countries (DB901-DB3150, DJK, DK, DR) • Russian and East European Political Science (JC474, several JN ranges, JQ1070-JQ1198, JS6055-JS6139) • Slavic and Uralic literature (PG, PH)

  5. Research Questions • How close are we to the 80/20 rule? • Which call numbers in our disciplines circulate the most and the least? • Break downs of numbers of materials in call number ranges.

  6. Methodology • Technical Services and Selectors work together to analyze collections • All librarians may not be familiar with all the functionality of an Integrated Library System (ILS) • Different librarians have different skill sets • Good communication is necessary to ensure the right questions are used to find the needed information

  7. Methodology • An ILS is a rich source of collection data • Circulation • Acquisition • Cost • Bibliographic • With the right query you can analyze just about any aspect of your collection • Using catalog information can lead to a better understanding of your collection and new questions

  8. Methodology • Selectors need to know what information is available and the functionality of the ILS • We used III Millennium • Different ILS will have different functionality • The quality of the data you can gather is only as good as the quality of your catalog • Garbage in = Garbage out • Information that has not been collected in the catalog can not be analyzed

  9. Methodology • Basic process • Formulate questions • Determine necessary information • Determine available information • Create reports • Analyze data

  10. Initial Findings

  11. Initial Findings

  12. Initial Findings

  13. Initial Findings

  14. Initial Findings

  15. Initial Findings

  16. How to calculate how close you are to the 80/20 rule • Sum the ‘total use’ column, this will be value (x). This is the number of times all items in the list have been used. • Find the values of 20% and 80% of value(x). For example, if there are 515 total uses 20% is 103 and 80% is 412. • Determine how many items make up 20% of the list, this will be value (y). For example, if there are 79 items 20% is 15.8, rounded up to 16. • Sort the ‘total use’ column in descending order (don’t include the title line). This will put the highest value at the top. Count down the list according to value (y). Determine how many total uses (y) represents by producing a sum of the ‘total use’ column for the items up to value (y). This will be value (z). Value (z) is the number of usages that are represented by the most used 20% of items in the list. • Divide (z) by (x). This number is the percentage of total uses represented by the top 20% of the list represented by value (z). If value (z) is close to 80% then your list is close to the 80% rule. For example, if there are 515 total usages (x), and 16 items represents the 20% of items that is used the most (y), with (z) = 335, then (z) is 65%.

  17. Example Formula

  18. Directions for Activity • Download the following documents: • Sampledata.xlsx • Sampleformulas.xlsx • Examine the data in the Excel spreadsheet “sampledata.xlsx” • Decide which of the research questions you would like to work on • Apply the formulas from the “sampleformulas.xlsx” worksheet *remember to keep your data and your formulas in separate documents

  19. Questions? We welcome commentary and questions after the presentation as well! hartsea@muohio.edu stepanm@muohio.edu gundyj@muohio.edu

More Related