2015 Charleston Library Conference

In a recent EBSCO survey to undergraduates, 40% of respondents stated that the library website was moderate to very challenging. 15% of respondents stated that they never use the library website.

An effective library website is critical to a user's research workflow and general understanding of the library's resources and sources. If the user finds the library website daunting then s/he may not a.) conduct an efficient and effective research, b.) have a full understanding of the value of the library, or c.) use it. This poster provides library staff especially those responsible for usability with recommended tips and tools for ensuring that students have a positive experience when using their library website. Common library website issues such as where to start, library jargon, navigation, content strategy, and accessibility will be addressed with the poster.

Moving from simplistic, open web search strategies sufficient for high school level work to independently navigating the complex system of information sources available on college campuses is a developmental milestone for undergraduate students. One of the aims of library instruction is to play a critical role in this transition to college-level research, which necessitates the use of specialized databases and other information sources. Instruction librarians raise awareness of library e-resources and provide in-depth guidance in selecting and effectively using online sources. Santa Clara University librarians were interested in investigating the immediate impact of instruction on the use of the library’s e-resources. Do students regularly use library resources after instruction or do they revert to open web sources when searching independently?

To study this question, Santa Clara University librarians examined LibGuides statistics, usage data, and instruction data to determine how frequently students access library databases post-instruction. The investigators examined LibGuides associated with course instruction from a selection of classes and explored the potential impact of instructional techniques, timing of instruction, and assignment integration on sustained use of electronic resources. The investigators also examined use of resources by level of course to explore whether independent use of library resources increased as students progress through their college years.

This poster will share methodologies for assessing use of library e-resources after instruction using LibGuides statistics combined with usage and instruction data. The poster will also explore opportunities for implementing this method to assess instruction, access, and use of e-resources on college campuses.

Many libraries suffer from budget cuts and exchange rate fluctuations. They can optimize their (usage-base) subscriptions using the journal access statistics from their organization. Such statistics is usually provided by publishers in a COUNTER-compliant format, which only includes total access numbers without revealing access patterns and internal details, such as access filtering. NIMS Library uses a proxy server to access e-journals, which logs all HTTP requests to journal websites. If we can map URLs in the log files to journals then we can compare them with the COUNTER-based statistics and obtain more accurate and detailed usage reports. For this purpose, we have developed an access log analyzer, which includes mapping rules from URLs to journals and can be tuned by the librarians. In this survey, we will show the following:
- How this log analyzer and mapping function work
- How we can distinguish accesses to the full text, abstract and supplementary content from access logs
- How we integrate the log analyzer to other library systems such as ERMS
- How we analyze access to journals from different publishers
- Difficulties in creating and updating mapping rules per publisher
- The differences between the COUNTER-based usage statics and actual access numbers