We've set our booking system to give us the following as weekly/monthly
figures for each of our libraries:
* No. sessions per day
* No. users of each type (male/female; adult/child; borrower/guest)
* Length of sessions
* Applications used
* Menu options chosen
With a little work we could also get figures for the percentage of sessions
cancelled. With a bit more work we could analyse where the customers came
from (we ask guests for a postcode and with a bit of effort we can
cross-reference against the borrower database on our Dynix system as we're
using the barcode as the borrower log-in).
Of course, collecting the information isn't the same as monitoring the
service. We've not done a lot on collating this information yet (pressure of
work). No doubt once we get stuck in and pull it all together we'll find
that it'll be another case where we're required to submit quite another
dataset altogether!
One of the things we would like to do but I don't see happening for a long
while given my workload is a correlation between the use of the People's
Network and the use of the lending library. I suspect an age/gender profile
would be most useful. In the absence of ODBC links between the systems I'd
have to work up a way of periodically importing the barcodes from the
booking system reports into Dynix and using these as keys for pulling
together circulation data. This should be reasonably do-able, it's just
having the time to make the inevitable mistakes that's the problem.
Steven
Steven Heywood
Systems Manager
Rochdale Library Service
Wheatsheaf Library
Baillie Street
Rochdale, England OL16 1JZ
Tel: 01706 864967
Fax: 01706 864992
Read any good books lately?
http://www.rochdale.gov.uk/living/libraries.asp?url=libraryread
> ----------
> From: Tim Browning[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To: Tim Browning
> Sent: 27 January 2003 15:25
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: People's Network Monitoring & Evaluation
>
> Is anyone out there monitoring their PN usage, regularly, and how?
> Is anyone using their library systems to monitor the nature of usage, or
> using desktop software to monitor/interrogate users?
> Is anyone aware of NOF/ReSOURCE requirements in this respect?
> Tim Browning
> Libraries ICT Manager
> Bath & North East Somerset Libraries
> Bath Central Library
> [log in to unmask]
>
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