The Ubiquitous Librarian (Brian Mathews)

5 next-gen library catalogs and 5 students: their initial impressions

This is something I’ve been sitting on for awhile now, sorry for my lack of blog time. It was a very quick and dirty study, but it gives you something to think about.

Ok, so there has been a lot of hype in recent years about building the Next-Generation Catalog. Here at GT we launched ours based on VuFind. I didn’t want to test our implementation but rather I wanted to hear what my students thought about other so-called Next Gen Cats. So I asked them.

I invited five Georgia Tech students (various majors) to volunteer (damn, the price of coffee isn’t what it used to be) to conduct a basic keyword search on five next-gen library catalogs. Basically, I told them that I wanted their first impressions, whatever came to mind. I told them to think about it as if I were designing a new catalog, tell me what they liked and disliked. Granted, it’s not very scholarly, I admit it, but I wanted to do a perceptions study, rather than an efficiently or usability study. I sat beside each student as they worked through the five catalogs that I selected, and took notes as quickly as I could. I also mixed up the order, as an attempt to limit their initial preferences.

Here is a summary of their comments:


Next Generation Melvyl Pilot (WorldCat + University of California System)

• Three of them said the initial page was “too empty” “too blah” or “too barren”; the other two said it was “fine” and “clean”
• Lots of comments on slowness. One student said it took more than ten seconds to provide results, “that’s unacceptable” Another was more blunt stating “slow-motion search, typical library”
• Two students were confused as to why articles where included in the catalog; the other three didn’t seem to notice.
• They all liked the book covers… but I noticed (from this very small sample) the impact they had on selection. Almost all the students said they would give preference to an item that had a book cover, and would give less attention to the books that had grayed out covers. One student suggested that if no cover was available that the record shouldn’t show a gray space holder, but should be plain white. This concept of a book-cover preference should be studied more (any takers?), but the gist of my theory is that records that didn’t show the cover are deemed inferior by users. [ALA Editions, get my cover in WorldCat] J
• They liked the limiters on the left side: format, year, language, topic, etc. In general, they liked the idea of limiters, but there was a definite preference for left over right side. I asked each student if they had ever used limiters before in our library catalog and they all said no, not really, or I’ve never used the catalog before.
• They generally liked the colors and layout.
• They loved the “preview in Google books” option and the “similar items” feature.
• One student said she liked the option to tag, but when I pushed her on that she admitted that she would not tag anything herself, but would use it if others had.
• When looking at the full record, three of the students felt there was too much information. One student had a “strong dislike” for the large font. Two of them also had issues with “all the tables” in the page design. One of them also said: “orange buttons with white text is a tremendous failure”
• One student (Computer Science) suggested “wouldn’t it be cool if there was a module so that authors could plug in their blog or twitter feeds, or link to their FaceBook profile? If I’m reading a book and I like it, I might want to know more about the person and what else they have written, as well as what they are working on right now.” So there you go OCLC, something else to work on.

VuFind (Villanova)

• They all generally liked the color scheme and design. One said “the green is nice” Another called it “a very pleasant” interface.
• They reacted negatively to “no image available” in the results. “Don’t tell me there is no image available” “Just don’t show me anything.”
• Four of five said they preferred the limiters or “narrow search” features on the left, instead of right. My theory is that we start reading left to right and it seemed out of place at the end of content? Odd that all the students reflected on this without any prompting.
• One student said, “I don’t want to see a heart next to any books unless I have already selected it as a favorite.”
• “It would be nice to know if this book was a best seller or an award winner or if the author is famous”
• “I like the comments feature, but I wish it wasn’t public” – Basically said that she might want to leave notes to herself or her friends, but not want others to see them. (I can see this in a techno-thrill, where cryptic spy messages are embedded into library catalog comment selections, like the newspaper classified ads during the Cold War Era.)
• Two students said they wanted to see a floor map, not just the statement “third floor.”
• Three students said they “didn’t like” or were “unsure” about the tabs: holdings, description, comments, reviews, and staff view. They seemed to think that the record looked as if information was missing. When I pushed them for more, they couldn’t tell me what they wanted to see, but it wasn’t there, or there were “organizational” issues. The other two students said they preferred these “short and to the point” records compared to other catalogs.
• Two students said they “really liked” the Amazon reviews included in the records.
• One student texted himself the record, but it never arrived. We waited 15 minutes but the citation was a no show.
• One student misspelled a word and said it should “be like Google and tell me how to spell what I am looking for”
• One student said, “it would be nice to know how long I could check this book out for, tell me right here on the screen”

Endeca (NCSU)

• Generally adverse feelings about the initial search screen compared with other catalogs. Students used words like “dumpy” “confusing” or “text is too small” One color comment “Red on white just burns my eyes”
• They liked the limiters on the left, but universally hated the book covers on the right.
• They repeated a general theme that if we (librarians) are going to go through the trouble of designing something new, then make sure it looks modern like Amazon or iTunes.
• Looking at the results page, several students mentioned a feeling of “too much white space” “needs to be tightened up” “needs some polish” One even said “the coding looks off, it is too wide, too stretched out.”
• Two students really liked the Ask Us Now button. Said it was very noticeable.
• Three students pointed out that they liked seeing the availability of the item on the results screen—also liked knowing if it was on reserve. “very helpful”
• One student felt that the results of his keyword where less accurate compared with the other catalogs. (The history of fabric.)
•  “It looks like they are trying to be like Villanova, but failed.”
• “very Microsoft”
• Two students pointed out that they liked how if there wasn’t a book cover available it was just blank, it didn’t just say “no cover”. One student specifically said “see, it can be done, they got that right”
• “It would be nice if they gave me a list of call numbers (she called them bar codes) so that I could browse around different areas in the library.” The topic she was interested in blended T’s and H’s (technology and business) she was very insistent on wanting to be able to browse for books, rather than look for a specific title.
•  “show me a picture of it on the shelf”
• “they have a great selection of books”
• “the preview in Google books is too hidden, they should make that more obvious. I’d be more likely to look at a book if I knew I could glance at it first.” Again, this theme of tangibility or tactile qualities: show me the cover, let me scroll through it online first, let me see if it’s what I want or need. It is kind of like listening to 30 second song previews or watching movie trailers. I can see a theme/question emerging, is it our job to just show them what we own, or to make the content appear more enticing? If Book A has cool cover art, positive reviews, a good rating, and a 30 page preview, then am I more willing/likely to use it than Book B, which might be more appropriate in terms of content, but it lacks the notable features that lure me in? This is the significance of the user experience—I perceive book A to be better because of my emotional instincts toward the way it was presented. (I’d like to study this more.)

Vergo Beta  (UVA)

• “Why is there only one book that was recently added?” He wanted to see several and be able to browse by subject.
• Students were fairly divided on the initial search screen. Two really liked it, two “hated it” – and one didn’t care
• One student spent more than five minutes clicking around with the limiters before entering any keywords. He seemed lost. I asked what he was looking for and he said “just poking around” All of the next-gen catalogs had sidebar limiters, but students generally seemed to prefer the aesthetics of UVA’s the most overall. However, several of them seemed confused or hesitant about see these options prior to performing a search.
• The one student again remarked that he wanted to be able to enter misspelled words and have the system correct them.
• “There is a tab for music, how about one for movies?”
• They seemed to be divided about the presentation of the record. “It feels like a high school library” “Something is missing.” “Where are the tabs and the features like the other catalogs?” Others said “it looks smooth” “just the right amount of info”
• “I don’t like seeing all the old books first.”
• One student did a search for Steve Jobs and limited it by the most recent (date received) -- the top findings were archival documents. The second one was “The select letters of Major Jack Downing” 1834. The whole first page was filled with similar items. The student was very dismissive “look how broken this is” He had wanted to see the most recent books about Steve Jobs and instead got things totally off target.
• “This needs auto-fill”
•  “I would like to see trailers for the DVDs, like Netflix. In fact, it would be cool to see how many movies the library has that are in my Netflix Queue so I could borrow them.”
• “I wish it told me how many times a book was checked out. I’d like a list of the most popular books in my subject based upon the number of people who read them”
• “I want to see more than ten books per page. Give me an option to choose how many books I want to see.” I asked him what his ideal number might be and he said 20 to 30, or maybe 50.

AquaBrowser (U of Chicago)

• General feeling of too much text up front. “Put the search in the middle” Overall, a feeling that it looks too-hard-to-use and confusing. I think it is safe to say that compared with others this one appeared less intuitive.
• The one student raved about the suggested spelling feature. “This is what they all need!”
• There were mixed feelings about the call numbers box showing up before the results. “This should be on the side” Others were confused by why it was there or what it was to be used for.
• Four of five loved the concept map feature. One said it was lame. As they clicked through it, some got lost or found it “strange” but it definitely brought the “wow-cool” factor.
• The interface was perceived to be “old” “clunky” “minimalist” and even “an early-web-edition” Even though it offers many of the modern features, like tags, it didn’t seem to come across as contemporary as the other catalogs.
• “I like how I can report an item that is not on shelf.”
• Issues again with covers on the right, instead of left.

from our design charrette today

Watch high quality version 

Do you want to appear smarter? Show some empathy.

I hope everyone had a nice break. I always only seem to be able to accomplish half of the tasks I set out to do. This break was filled with many distractions. One of them was an afternoon with LibQUAL+,  but I found something interesting.

It started with a question:  is there a connection between how knowledgeable a person is perceived with the level of friendliness that they offer. Another way of looking at: during a customer service interaction, do we perceive people who are nice to be more competent?  My hypothesis was that there would be a strong correlation in the LibQUAL+ data between “knowledgeable” and “caring” or “courteousness.” I was partially correct.

I looked at the undergraduate data from 84 schools (mostly ARL) and ran the correlation formula on the perception ratings for all of the customer service questions. I compared them with “employees who have the knowledge to answer user questions” and here is what I got back:

• .8225 “Employees who understand the needs of their users.”
• .7707 “Employees who deal with users in a caring fashion.”
• .7555 “Readiness to respond to users’ questions.”
• .7525 “Employees who instill confidence in users.”
• .7332 “Willingness to help users.”
• .7185 “Employees who are consistently courteous.”
• .7112 “Dependability in handling users’ service problems.”
• .6622 “Giving users individual attention.”

So there you have it. Show someone that you understand their question, their problem, or their need, and you will appear more intelligent. Just because you have a PhD or an advanced degree doesn’t mean you are an expert in a patron’s eyes. It is the person who is empathic and guides them along that is perceived to have the answers. With the new semester starting, maybe this is a good time to brush up on the reference interview.

It is interesting that the “individual attention” correlation scored so low. For years it seems that librarians have been pushing the one-on-one research consultation, but maybe that is not as important as we thought. It’s convenient for us with our busy schedules, but when looking at all the other factors, it had the lowest connection to being perceived as knowledgeable. Something to think about.

While Reference Stats Decline, Oregon surges +51%. A glimpse at some ARL outliers

I read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers this week and it is a great book... but I like all his stuff. The section on Asian students and math/work ethic is really good and I really liked his analysis on sports and age limit deadlines. There is also some good parenting advice in there as well.

Anyway, my colleague Jon Bodnar and I are working on a handful of writing projects and this theme of outliers started to standout for me. We are currently processing a ton of ARL stats and I became very interested in the idea of who is outperforming the overall trends. This post is in no why authoritative, statistically valid, or what have you—just something I found interesting and that wanted to share. Jon’s office is right beside mine and so we’ve been discovering these types of epiphanies all week long.  It has been a good week.

Reference Questions
Overall the trend is downward. Nothing new here, we’ve all been hearing that for years. When you look at 1995 to 2005 the ARL average drops about 47%. That is a lot fewer questions!

Ah, but not at Oregon. The Ducks report a +51% increase in reference queries during this time period. Interesting, but why? Did they add service points? Did they renovate or change the layout? Did they alter the way they record stats? I am sure there are many variables, but I just found it fascinating that while everyone else declined they surged so much.

Other Reference Outliers:

• Columbia (+46%)
• Toronto (+40%)
• Washington (+38%)
• Cincinnati  (+36)

There were a total of 12 libraries that saw an increase during this period, the other 83 saw a decline.
NOTE: Not all member libraries provided data.

Total Circulation
Total circulation is another area that has seen an overall decline. From 1995 – 2005 the average total circ count per ARL library is down 11%. Not bad really. The steepest drop is -68%, but overall -11% seems decent. I would have suspected about -30 or -40%, but what do I know? One think I do know is that patrons at Ohio State love to borrow books! During this same period OSU saw a +110% increase in circulation. I didn’t believe it at first but visited their website to double check—indeed it is true. So again, why? They have been building a new library for years, but I would think that would hurt circulation. Are they circulating more DVDs? More reserves? Why are they busting the overall trend? That is a substantial increase!

Other Circulation Outliers:
Columbia (+66%)
Harvard (+59%)
Southern Illinois (+52%)
Utah (+40%)

There were a total of 32 libraries that saw an increase during this period, the other 73 saw a decline.
NOTE: Not all member libraries provided data.

Instruction
Last but not least: instruction. ARL asks for groups as well as total participants involved with instruction. My feeling is that there is some inconsistency here. I mean, do you only count classroom sessions? What about orientations? What about tours?  This is very subjective. If I help four students working together on an assignment does that count as a group or is that four reference queries?  Maybe both? Or maybe just one query? In other words, take this section with a grain of salt. I doubt all 100+ libraries are following the same counting practices.

From 1995 to 2005 there has been a significant rise with instruction or at least in attendance.  The stat for “presentation participants” went up +40%. That’s huge.

And who saw the largest increase? Toronto with +392%. That’s right they taught just over 6,000 students in 1996 and then reached over 30,000 in 2005. Texas gets the top honor for most participants in 2005 with 61,042, but how did Toronto surge so much in such a short time? What’s the story? Did they get new classrooms? More librarians? A change in the curriculum?

Yale was another top outlier with a +361% increase. In 2005 they had over 10,000 people participate in instruction sessions--- that is pretty good for a school with just 5,300 undergraduates.
In fact, there were 22 libraries that saw triple digital percentage increases during this 10 year period. Only 19 schools saw a decrease with instruction, while the bulk was somewhere between 20% and 90%. Here is a quick trend line:

So again that question: why did Toronto (+392), Yale (+361), Boston (+276), Columbia (+259), and Emory (+227) pull far ahead of everyone else? Did these organizations decide to really push instruction? Did the faculty really embrace information literacy? Did they all start counting the ten minute overviews that librarians give at new student orientation events as “instructional” sessions? Who knows? Columbia ended up in the top five of all three catagories-- why? Why them instead of Cornell or Harvard or Wisconsin or UCLA?

As I mentioned, Jon and I are hacking at some data that really has nothing to do with this topic— this is my tangent. I just find it incredibly fascinating to look at the data and piece together stories. Gladwell of course would go three levels deeper and rationalize what happened at each place and could tell us why Columbia was so successful. I am just aiming for an entertaining winter break blog post.

Tell me about your laptop – what libraries can do to provide support

   

At Georgia Tech we have policy that all incoming freshmen are supposed to have laptops. Gone are the days of the desktop—it is all mobile now! We started to notice heavy laptop use throughout the building awhile ago, but never really thought too much of it other than beefing up wireless. With our last renovation we also tried to provide more table space and power so that students could use their laptops…  but there is a feel that we could be doing more.

An interesting discovery, although not that surprising, is that during the day about 1 out of 4 students in the library (not at a computer) are using their laptops, while at night 5 out of 6 people are using laptops. This doesn’t take into account people working at desktops who are also using their laptops. This huge day/night surge is evidence that most students don’t carry them to class, but in the evening bring them along. This data is based on stats at the end of the term when things are heightened, so we’re not focusing too much on the exact numbers, but instead asking ourselves what kind of support can the library provide for laptop users?

I am not talking about IT support, although that is offered by people in our building, but rather about  the types of software, gadgets, accessories, tools, furniture, or supplies that would help people to be more productive. So I asked them:

• Recliners and more ottomans
• More outlets
• More headphones for check out
• Power strips
• Extension cords
• Book stands / paper stands
• More small cubical-like spaces
• Wireless keyboards
• Wireless mice
• Laptop docking stations
• Comfortable chairs with tables and power outlets attached
• Live chat with IT Help Desk
• A bunch of common chargers available for checkout
• Power outlets in all of the furniture
• Laptop friendly tables and chairs (everything adjustable)
• Swirling desk chairs
• External drives
• Flash jump drives
• More laptops for check out
• MacBooks for checkout, not just Dells

That’s the quick and dirty.  We asked other questions as well, but this gives you a taste. One direction we are talking about heading is creating a package specifically for groups or individual users in which they can check out a case with a power solution, keyboard, and mouse with perhaps a few other accessories bundled together.  We’ll see what the future holds. First we have to survive more budget cuts and I am sure our UGA-loving Governor is not too pleased with Georgia Tech running all over his sad dawgs.

Thanks to C. Bennett for getting this started and to A. Valk for helping me count.

What do students want to see in a library newsletter?

The GT Library has been producing a monthly newsletter for about four years now. These issues appear in the bathroom stalls and are filled with a hodgepodge of information. We were inspired by William & Mary’s effort and you can read our back-story here.

I am no longer involved with the production of this publication but I am lending a hand in the assessment effort. I recently conducted a quick poll (I actually had a student do it in order to get more authentic answers) of individuals around campus and asked them a few questions.

• Did they recall ever seeing an issue before in the library?
• Review three issues and tell me what info/design elements stand out the most.
• Which of these three issues is your favorite?
• What type of content would you like to see or expect to see in this type of publication?

This is the first wave of a handful of assessment efforts. I tested different layout styles to see how much text was too much text, what types of images or themes did students like, and what did they remember based upon a quick glance. The editorial group is working through that data now and hopefully it will help them with future production. One of the most interesting finds was a design that just about all the male participants labeled as “too feminine.”

Anyway, for what it is worth to others out there, this is the type of stuff they wanted to see in the newsletter:

Males

• fun stuff, funny and interesting facts, things that apply to college students
• events on campus/around Atlanta, study tips, facts
• cool books or websites
• websites for students, info on library, good books, resources
• new things on campus, events, good books
• cool websites, ideas for things to do on campus and in library
• jokes, word teasers, info about tech, website resources for students
• funny facts, happenings around tech, info on library

Females

• campus info
• interesting facts about tech, events at the library
• events on campus, interesting facts, jokes
• good books, events on campus, spotlight an organization
• events in Atlanta, events sponsored by tech groups, info on the library
• things going on at library, facts people don’t know about the library
• advice, events on campus, info about the library
• map of library, where you can find certain things within library, humor
• cool books or magazines, people’s opinions, jokes, interesting facts
• stuff about tech

Student Reviews of LibGuides & SubjectsPlus

We are in the pre-planning process of transitioning over to a new subject guide system. Two of the products that we are seriously considering are LibGuides and SubjectsPlus. (A big thanks to the taskforce for all their work.)

I asked a few students to provide some quick feedback looking at another school’s guide for their discipline—here’s what I got back.

LibGuides

Student #1
hard to scan text, too wordy, not enough differentiation between title
and description of databases. not enough focus on the main content -
it is battling for the reader's attention with 2 sidebars. the site
design is repulsive, rounded corners make it look like they're trying
to go web 2.0 but failing miserably and it doesn't work well with the
homepage which is more grid/linear oriented than rounded corners
and modules.

Student #2
- there's too much red
- it's hard to read
- the search bar was hard to find
- the "meebo" feature looks pretty cool... is there a way to guarantee
that my questions would be answered? is there a program where i would
get the answer if i went offline?
- there should be an outline or description about the tabs because the
name of the tabs were really unclear...

Student #3
Libguides doesn't seem very helpful at all.  I just look for a list of the
journals/databases that GT has access to & I check those out.   

SubjectsPlus

Student #1
good, accessible navigation. headings in blue blocks clearly separate
different portions of the site that serve different tasks. interesting
use of icons to depict extra metadata about the databases visually.
descriptions have good line-height and are not too verbose to be
unhelpful. wouldn't hurt to wrap text in the main content area
earlier.. 15+ words per line is on the edge of being annoying to read.
main content is a bit too long, perhaps use domtab to load different
areas of text via JS. sidebar is helpful and spaced out well, albeit
the lower elements are too wordy for the area.

Student #2
- i like the "try these first" box that pops up
- the red/green padlocks that appear to show what i can/cannot use is
really helpful
- the Research by Subject: Business--Industry Information section at the
top should stand out more. it doesn't really look important when actually
it saves a lot of time scrolling...
- the main horizontal bar is amazing! drop down lists that bring you to
specific pages is a great feature
- the option to hide or show the key is GREAT!
- a picture of the librarian is also helpful

Student #3
really dislike the popup that you would have to X out of every time.
It's useful to have the most common journals on top, but the popup makes
me feel like I'm being assaulted by advertisements. But I like how the layout
takes up the entire browser window. I don't really understand the 'lock' symbols
next to the journal titles. 

Personally I prefer LibGuides—it feels more modern and the features offer a lot of possibilities… but that’s librarian thinking. Students, at least these three, seemed to prefer the simpler of the two. I hope to get a few more responses back—if so I’ll post them here, but we’re on the verge of finals and they have better things to do than review subject guides.

Summary: It’s easy to get caught up with the flashy new toy, but I guess we just need to keep asking ourselves— who are these guides for: us or them?

The anatomy of an all-nighter

The transparent technologies of flickr and twitter offer tremendous assessment possibilities. We hear about students pulling all-nighters, but this is documented evidence.

4:56 PM
paper + pres due in 22 hours. tick tock. group members unite

6:51 PM
if I have to pull an allnighter to finish this proj I'll likely have to skip the gatech awards banquet luncheon thing and get my award later

7:55 PM
I just talked about epistemological connections in this CS paper. Do I get my cookie now or later?

09:23 PM
trying to explain color wars in this paper as a way of community-driven convention for subgroups. prof is going to think twitter is crazy.

10:17 PM
GT Parking is heartless.. giving parking tickets to students parked at the library this late. @flashmob needs to do something about it

11:15 PM
cramped between @jarryd and @hd_phones in the library near the collaborative computing section.

12:24 AM
@vending_machine: let me start a tab! you know I'm good for it. i need this caffeine. don't make @jarryd and i tilt you. you know we can.

2:10 AM
paper update: 7,400 words and probably 5 pages or so left. then lots of proof reading, bibliography, and then making a presentation. x_x

3:28 AM
just got a call from my connect. coffee is on the way. @ 8,100 words

5:30 AM
now at 8,700 words. just me and @jarryd in the library.

6:11 AM
~9,100 words and we haven't started on the presentation yet =/

3:04 PM
just got done presenting my twitter research paper. relaxing would be nice but alas i have more projects to do.

5:12 PM
back from rocky mtn pizza with @jarryd and @gomeler. now to regain the sleep I didn't get from crashing on the library floor this morning

Donuts for Design

Our administration distributed donuts to each department/unit as an anniversary of our ACRL Award.  So the User Experience Group—consisting of myself and a multimedia designer—took our dozen and gave them out to students… with the catch that they had to give us feedback on a renovation that is currently in the pre-planning stages.

This pre-planning stage has consumed me the past few months. (I’ll post about that in a few weeks once everything is done and we move to the next phase.) So after hours of observation, focus groups, interviews, and U of Rochester type techniques—we’ve developed four layout prototypes—all based on user feedback. In fact, two of the designs were drawn by students themselves. We’ve been testing these concepts over the last two weeks and our little donut excursion re-enforced everything that we’ve been hearing. You know that you’ve got the right design when everyone shares the same vision.

WHAT GETS VIEWED? An exploratory study of large IR collections

In my work circle there has been a lot of talk about growing our institutional repository. There is a big push to add meaningful content. The thing that I always get hung up on though is usage. I’m very interested in what people find useful, and my feeling is that if I’m going to pitch this service to my faculty, then I need to prove to them that the stuff is actually being seen, rather than simply offering them a theoretical argument about why open access is good and big publishers are evil.

So I decided to do a mini study. I wanted to see what the top items viewed were across several universities. I used ROAR to identify DSpace collections in the US, and then sent emails to the libraries with the 10 largest collections. One library never responded, another (MIT) shot me down with ““I'm sorry to report that our staff is unable to provide that data at this time”—but all the others provided me with a list of their top 20 most viewed items. (Thanks!)
I should note that Georgia Tech and U of Oregon were the only organizations in this sample that allowed open access to their statistics.

The results were very eclectic, as expected, however there were definite themes that emerged. For example, the U of Rochester included many musical scores, U of Michigan was heavy with engineering technical reports, Ohio State had numerous articles from The Ohio Journal of Science, U Oregon featured NewBreed Librarian articles as well as classic texts from Shakespeare, Milton and others, while Oregon State included several environmental topics. U Maryland had the most diverse materials and is unquestionably the heaviest used collection within this sample.

Someone should publish a scholarly article about this and perform a detailed synthesis on these collections, but in the mean time, here are the top viewed items from each of the collections:

• Delivery of DNA and Recombinant Infectious Bursal Disease Virus Vaccines in Ovo (dissertation), 34,768 hits, U of Maryland

• How Do I Do This in ArcGIS/Manifold?: Illustrating Classic GIS Tasks, 18,636 hits, Cornell

• Relaxation studies in the muscular discriminations required for touch, agility and expression in pianoforte playing, 8,764 hits, U of Rochester

• A study of the role of carbon in temper-embrittlement and the effect of temper-embrittlement on the fatigue properties of a 3140 steel, 7,155 hits, U of Michigan

• Dragonflies Taken in a Week, 6,650 hits, Ohio State

• Measurement of delignification diversity within kraft pulping (dissertation), 5,517 hits, Georgia Tech (current year only)

• NewBreed Librarian ; Vol. 2, No. 4, 2,093 hits, U of Oregon

• Estimating the weight of plywood, 500 hits, Oregon State

There is definitely a lot of long-tail action going on too. Most of the repositories featured one or two heavily used items, but then dropped off drastically.

Some questions:

• Why is the U of Maryland IR used so heavily? Their top 3 items blow away everyone else (34,768 hits; 32,916 hits; and 32,214 hits respectively)
• How are people finding this stuff? Google? Native Searches? Catalog Searches? Direct Links? We need to run an analytics program.
• How many of these hits are from web crawlers or related software?
• Why the long-tail? What makes those top few items so popular? And just how long is the tail? Could you say something like 90% of everything in our IR was viewed at least once over the past two years?
• If you place your IR within your metasearch tool, will it pad your results?
• Is there a big difference between views and downloads?
• Why does the DSpace interface still look so mid-1990’s?
• How are items obtained? Is it piecemeal or more systematic? Are we building collections or is it random take-what-we-can-get?
• What is the percentage of dissertations? (or, take away dissertations and what have you got left?)
• What non-text items are collected (mp3, videos, jpg, etc)?
• Leaving the  big vision rhetoric aside, what is the goal of each IR?
• How do you measure the success of an IR? Is it volume or downloads or something else?

(If this is your area and you want to work on something together, let me know. I'm devoted to ALA Editions right now, but I'd like to continue this project into 2008.)