I deeply apologize—I have an error about Clicky Stats.  Here’s the correct information:

 

Clicky Stats

The Health Sciences and Human Services Library at the University of Maryland uses a program they developed themselved called Clicky Stats.  It was developed with open source software. 

 

Please note that their code is NOT available.  Again, the error is mine; I’d neglected to include that corrected information in the raw data before it was summarized.   

 

Take care,

 

Tanya

 

 

***cross-posted; please feel free to repost***

 

I want to thank colleague John Reynolds, who graciously offered to summarize all the responses I’d gotten.   BTW, I do have screen shots of Ref Stats, Clicky Stats, Library Stats, and another one in ColdFusion; email me and I’ll send the PDF to you. 

 

 

A summary of responses to an email request for suggestions on collecting reference statistics at a medical school library.

By:  John Reynolds, MSLIS

Adult Services Library Specialist

Broward County Libraries - Sunrise Dan Pearl Branch

Volunteer Medical/Hospital Library Assistant

[log in to unmask]">jomireyn3 AT gmail.com

 

    The librarians in the Reference and Education Department at the Louis Calder Memorial Library at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine currently record reference question statistics on a paper chart located at the reference desk.  This arrangement does not allow for the convenient or simple capture of reference activities performed away from the reference desk area, such as in librarians' offices or elsewhere in the library, or work done outside the library. Using the paper chart also makes compiling the statistics and preparing reports more difficult.

 

    In order to begin looking for a better method, Tanya Feddern-Bekcan, Reference and Education Librarian,  posted a request for information on seven health science library mailing lists, asking what methods are currently being used at other libraries or for suggestions on what  might be effective at the Calder Library. The request was posted on August 21, 2009 the following lists:

 

LIBREF-L (http://www.library.kent.edu/page/10391)

MEDLIB-L (http://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=MEDLIB-L)

NAHRS (http://nahrs.mlanet.org/activity/discussion_list.html)

CANMEDLIB (http://lists.mun.ca/archives/canmedlib.html)  

CAPHIS (http://caphis.mlanet.org/mailman/listinfo/caphis_caphis.mlanet.org)

aliaHEALTH (http://lists.alia.org.au/mailman/listinfo/aliahealth)

LIS-Medical (https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=lis-medical)

 

and stated:

 

Hello, everyone.  In our Reference & Education department, we rotate: one of us in on the desk while the other two are in our offices (or teaching around campus).  We have a paper chart at the reference desk whereby we can capture our reference question statistics; however, this doesn’t capture the reference questions we receive in our offices or during non-work hours—we have to remember to mark them down on the master chart downstairs.  There’s got to be a better way.  Does anyone have a better method?  We want our data to be automatically compiled into one central point, so 3 paper charts are no good.  We could have the chart in Google Docs, but I would prefer a small widget that we could have on our computers that we can make our tick marks on—and that would combine all our inputted data automatically.  Any ideas?

 

Responses were received from eighteen individuals at fifteen institutions between August 21 and September 9, including some follow up questions by Ms Feddern-Bekcan.

 

Systems in use at the responding libraries were either commercial products, systems developed by library staff, or ready to use open source software, with or without local modifications.

 

 

 

Commercial Products

Three libraries reported using commercial software.

 

Desktracker

The University of Wyoming Libraries and Arizona State University Libraries both use DeskTracker.  A customizable desktop application that can be used to generate a variety of reports.

 

contact and product info:

Desktracker: www.desktracker.com, http://www.compendiumlib.com/case-studies.php  

Arizona State University: Kathleen Carlson, Kathleen.Carlson AT asu.edu

University of Wyoming: Jenny Garcia, jgarcia ATuwyo.edu

 

DB/Textworks

Warneford Hospital at Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust uses DB/Textworks,  which appears to be part of a larger set of library information management tools.

 

contact and product info:

DB/Textworks: http://www.inmagic.com/products/LibrarySuite/index.html, www.inmagic.com/products/LibrarySuite/InmagicDBTextWorks.pdf  

 

 

 

Home Grown Systems

Five libraries reported using systems they have developed themselves, of varying complexity.

 

Mount Sinai

Mount Sinai School of Medicine Gustave L. & Janet W. Levy Library uses a web accesable database written in ColdFusion that runs on the libary's Fusion server.  Librarians access it through the library's website. Jim Viskochil, the Information Systems & Technology Librarian at the library wrote the program and is available to discuss it.  He states that the same type of program could be written in PHP or any other web database language. 

 

contact:
Jim Viskochil, james.viskochil AT mssm.edu

 

Clicky Stats

The Health Sciences and Human Services Library at the University of Maryland uses a program they developed themselved called Clicky Stats.  It was developed with open source software.  It is copyrighted and they are willing to share it for free with other libraries.  They are currently finalizing the details for sharing the project.  The library director is M.J. Tooey.  Alexa Mayo is the Associate Director for Services and Acting Deputy Director, and is responsible for sharing the code with interested libraries.

 

contact:
M.J. Tooey, mjtooey AT hshsl.umaryland.edu
Alexa Mayo, amayo AT hshsl.umaryland.edu - from U of M HS/HSL staff directory. Email address was not given in the original communication.

 

Excel

Two libraries, the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, and the Health Sciences Library at the University of Saskatchewan,  reported using an Excel spreadsheet located on a networked drive where each user can add to it.

 

contact :

CADTH: Sarah McGill, SarahM AT cadth.ca

University of Saskatchewan: Susan Murphy, susan.murphy AT usask.ca

 

(Excel) University of Vermont, Dana Medical Library

The Dana Medical Library is in the process of developing its own system.  They did not provide details. Angie Chapple-Sokol is overseeing the project.  [They’ve developed detailed tick sheets for the Reference and Circulation departments; data is entered into Excel daily or weekly, and pivot tables are used in Excel to display various aspects of the data.—Tanya]

 

contact:

Angie Chapple-Sokol, Angie.Chapple-Sokol AT uvm.edu

 

Access

Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning uses an Access database located on a server with an Access form to enter data. Other respondents also suggested using Access but did not actually use it themselves.

 

contact :

Chris Woodley, cwoodley AT conestogac.on.ca

 

Zoho

One respondent stated several small libraries in Vermont were reportedly using a Zoho application.  Zoho provides a large set of online applications.  The respondent did not specify which were being used.  Some of Zoho’s applications include spreadsheets, databases, survey generators, and report builders. Some are free and some are commercial products.

           

            product information:

www.zoho.com

 

 

 

Open Source Programs

Several libraries reported using a Google Code project, Libstats, or a version of it that they modified for their own use.  Libstats is web based and runs on a library’s server.

 

Google Code Libstats project, including demo, http://code.google.com/p/libstats

 

Refstats

Bracken Health Sciences Library, at Queens University, uses a system they built based on Libstats, called RefStats.   [I really like this one for our purposes—Tanya]

 

contact:

Wendy Huot, Queens University Libraries Systems Librarian, wendy.huot AT queensu.ca

Laurie Scott, Bracken Health Science Library at Queens, laurie.scott AT queensu.ca

 

Libstats

Ohio State University currently uses Libstats, but is planning to modify it to allow them to capture data in categories that conform to Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries and the Association of Research Libraries statistics survey categories.

 

contact:

Stephanie Schulte, Ohio State University Health Sciences Library,  schulte.109 AT osu.edu

 

The University of Texas at Arlington also uses Libstats, according to a secondhand report.

 

Take care,

Tanya

 

 

 

***cross-posted; feel free to repost***

 

Hello, everyone.  In our Reference & Education department, we rotate: one of us in on the desk while the other two are in our offices (or teaching around campus).  We have a paper chart at the reference desk whereby we can capture our reference question statistics; however, this doesn’t capture the reference questions we receive in our offices or during non-work hours—we have to remember to mark them down on the master chart downstairs.  There’s got to be a better way.  Does anyone have a better method?  We want our data to be automatically compiled into one central point, so 3 paper charts are no good.  We could have the chart in Google Docs, but I would prefer a small widget that we could have on our computers that we can make our tick marks on—and that would combine all our inputted data automatically.  Any ideas?

Thank you,

 

Tanya

Tanya Feddern-Bekcan, MLIS, AHIP, MOT, OTR/L http://www.geocities.com/nqiya/libraryarticles.html formerly Tanya Feddern
305.243.3999 - [log in to unmask] - 305.325.9670 (fax) EBM Theme Director & Reference and Education Librarian Louis Calder Memorial Library University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

"A library without a librarian is a reading room."-- Jenny Garcia of the University of Wyoming, MLS, AHIP