Libraries collect a lot of data. Data about borrowers, collection usage, website hits and search habits to name a few. However, are we delving deep enough, maximising the potential of what there is available to ensure our stakeholders continue to see our value? We know that digital access has changed people’s views on how they think we operate, but it has also offered us new insights into how they interact with us and their preferences. This book shows us how to mine the data available and make the best use of it, known as digital analytics. While focusing on a traditional website, the author writes in the first chapter on ‘Understanding Digital Analytics’ that its foundation is ‘the importance of combining data from different data sources to improve a website’s user experience based on an organisation’s goals …’ (p. 4). She goes on to state that it is important to identify the channels of data available to libraries (e.g. through Discovery Search, databases, social media and email) and what questions we want and need to answer, while never underestimating the challenges that analysis can raise.
The first three chapters cover the basics of digital analytics. Chapter two looks more at the channels discussed in the first chapter and what the main data points of interest may be (for databases, the number of sessions, searches, record views or full-text downloads). Chapter three discusses the tools that can be used to analyse and visualise the data, both free and cost. There is an emphasis on Google Analytics, but this is related to its availability and functionality, rather than any bias. While this is an interesting and necessary part of the book, understanding how digital analytics works in practice helped to cement to me as a reader why it is so powerful and valuable.
Chapters four and five detail projects the author has instigated at her university, the University of Colorado. The first focuses on how patrons engage with online help guides and tutorials such as LibGuides and Guide on The Side to see how effective they are, while the other looks at collection development and whether failure to find items that are not available and a user’s subsequent behaviour should have an impact on future collection development decisions. Remaining chapters are case studies from other institutions, covering the benefits of learning analytics to track student success and identify problems and solutions (the issue of maintaining data integrity, while maintaining privacy is covered in detail), the value of data dashboards, creating effective marketing campaigns to drive traffic to social media, and finally, using data to demonstrate that reference statistics are not really declining.
I am not a natural when it comes to data analysis, nonetheless the book has left me wanting to discuss with colleagues whether our library is using the data we have effectively, what is missing, and the changes it could prompt us to make. A book that elicits this call to action is a good book.
William Angliss Institute Learning Resource Centre
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© 2018 Daniel Giddens
https://doi.org/10.1080/24750158.2018.1466643