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Focus on Circulation Snapshots

Focus on Circulation Snapshots. A Powerful Tool for Print Collection Assessment. Richard Entlich Research and Assessment Librarian Cornell University Library ARL Assessment Conference, October 27, 2010. Libraries’ Customer Service Dilemma.

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Focus on Circulation Snapshots

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  1. Focus on Circulation Snapshots A Powerful Tool for Print Collection Assessment Richard Entlich Research and Assessment Librarian Cornell University Library ARL Assessment Conference, October 27, 2010

  2. Libraries’ Customer Service Dilemma • 21st century customer relationship management is all about personalization and customization • Recommender systems • Loyalty programs • Affinity programs • None of these programs can function without a lot of personal data • Libraries have a big problem with personal data

  3. Throwing Away Our “Customer” Data:It’s What We Do Cornell University Library practices on the collection, use, disclosure, maintenance and protection of personally-identifiable information “The Library seeks to protect user privacy by purging borrowing records as soon as possible. In general, the link connecting a patron with a borrowed item is broken once the item is returned.” ALA Code of Ethics III. We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired, or transmitted. New York State Civil Practice Law and Rules § 4509. Library records, which contain names or other personally identifying details regarding the users of ... college and university libraries and library systems of this state, including ... records related to the circulation of library materials, ... shall be confidential and shall not be disclosed ...

  4. Circulation Analysis without Personal Data • Limited scope (what, but not who) • Historical circulation counts tell us • which items circulated and how often • circulation within classes such as subject, language, publication date, unit library • average circulation levels • Individual transaction archive records can reveal • when circulation took place • user data associated with circulation, if maintained (often just a rudimentary status code)

  5. Options for Getting a More Personal Perspective on Usage • Surveys, focus groups, interviews • labor-intensive • not quantitative or comprehensive • self-selected participants • subject to various observer and participant biases • Grab it from the ILS, when it’s available • create a “snapshot” of all circulating items • opportunity to obtain borrower data • unobtrusive and objective process

  6. “Circulation Snapshot” • A frozen moment in a continuous stream of data • A chance to bring the user into circulation analysis • Profile the users of print • Identify relationships between users and materials • impact of characteristics like status, department, field of study, and college affiliation on borrowing habits • breakdown of subjects, languages, dates of publication by user groups Photo credit: jeff_golden http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffanddayna/5067383625/

  7. Doubts About Snapshots • Are they valid data sources for analysis? • A snapshot is just a blip in time • A snapshot has rigid borders • Is retention of borrower data acceptable practice? • A snapshot violates privacy } Efficacy issues } “Ethicacy” issue

  8. A Snapshot is a Random Slice of Time Photo credit: InfiniteWorld http://www.flickr.com/photos/infiniteworld/sets/72157601531269767/with/1161096313/

  9. Print Collections Churn Slowly

  10. A Snapshot Shows Nothing Beyond its Borders Photo credit: Andy Carvin http://www.flickr.com/photos/ andycarvin/1936753622/ • Two depts. have the same number of books in a subject area checked out, but one has 10x as many faculty • The same number of books in two subject areas are checked out, but the library owns 100x as many in one as the other

  11. The Need for Context isn’t Unique to Snapshots • All data has borders • Much data needs to be considered relative to other appropriate metrics • Assumptions need to be checked to be sure measures are meaningful and comparisons are valid

  12. A Snapshot Can Violate Someone’s Privacy Photo credit: hjrosasq http://www.flickr.com/photos/ hjrosasq/2082311437/

  13. Care and Forethought can Help Manage Privacy Concerns Photo credit: Vincent Diamante http://www.flickr.com/photos/sklathill/2255718951/

  14. Finding Balance: Confidentiality vs. Analytical Value • One extreme—discard all unique identifiers • Safest, but limits somewhat the analysis opportunities • Another extreme—retain unique identifiers • Maximizes analyzability, but compromises confidentiality • The middle ground—anonymize unique identifiers • Balances risk and benefit • Supports analysis of individual borrower behavior without revealing identity • e.g., We notice that Romance Studies faculty are borrowing lots of physics books. Is it one borrower, or a bold new trend?

  15. Anonymization Technique and Example • Use Cryptographic one-way hash (e.g. MD5 or SHA-1) • Characteristics • irreversible • unique input  unique output • minor change to input  major change to output Original user ID: 12345 ID after random transformation (extra security): 123&zQ?45 ID after transformation and SHA-1 encryption: 94D51D75B7AFBCD0F85D1844F06BE73C88B3AC1B Photo credit: Taber Andrew Bain http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewbain/3126113695/

  16. Basic Snapshot Recipe @ Cornell • Query Voyager ILS for data on currently charged books • Obtain cotemporal Human Resources (HR) data • Join the Voyager and HR data on the user ID • Merge in codebooks for HR codes • Load resulting table into Excel • Anonymize ID numbers and discard originals • Create Pivot table • Run queries as desired • Note: Your recipe will probably differ

  17. Ingredients in Snapshots @ Cornell

  18. Some Early Snapshot Applications at Cornell • For Unit Library Review process • From which depts/fields do borrowers of libraries come? • Which libraries do members of affiliated depts/fields use? • For Print Collection Usage Task Force review process • LC class user analysis by department and graduate field • Department/grad field usage breakdown by LC class • Circulation time and renewals by patron status • Other potential uses • User breakdown by publication date (for off-site transfer decision-making) • Inform individual subject selectors about usage in their domain

  19. Somewhat Messy Process; Tasty Results Questions? Comments? Acknowledgments: Inspiration: Corey Murata and HanaLevay, University of Washington Libraries Help with snapshot development and analysis at Cornell: Lydia Pettis, Pete Hoyt, Joanne Leary Photo credit: star5112 http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnjoh/ 4429337539/in/set-72157623515578367/ Camera shutter sound effect from http://www.pachd.com/sounds.html

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