Discovering User Behavior in Your Discovery System

Custom Google Analytics Event Tracking

Primo at Notre Dame

• Local Primo installation• PCI results included in 2012, 672 collections

currently activated• About 5 million local records after deduping• 3.7+ million Aleph records from ND and three

other local academic libraries• 2 million(ish) HathiTrust records• Plus records from our Special Collections and the

Kresge Law Library • ND: 8000 undergrads, 4000 grad students

Google Analytics Event Tracking

SCREENSHOT OF A VIDEO

• Browser development tools• GreaseMonkey (FireFox add-on)• jQuery• Colleagues and StackExchange!

Other tools

1 var recordTab = $("ul.EXLResultTabs");

2 recordTab.on("click", "li.EXLResultTab", function() {

3 var link = $(this);

4 ga('send', 'event', 'Onesearch Records','Access', link.text()); 5 });

var recordTab = $("ul.EXLResultTabs");

// console.log("recordTab:",recordTab);

recordTab.on("click", "li.EXLResultTab", function() {

var link = $(this);

// var label = link.text();

// console.log("Click recordTab: ",label);

ga('send', 'event', ‘CATEGORY',’ACTION', LABEL); });

Basic Discovery Service Questions

• How many searches and sessions does our discovery system get?

• How does that compare to our legacy catalog?• How has it changed from year to year?• What devices are our patrons using?• Should we focus more on mobile devices?

Interface-related Questions

• What facets and record tabs are used most?• Are there facets or record tabs that aren’t

used much?• Do our patrons continue on to the second,

third or fourth page of results?• Do our patrons use the new browse search?• Do our patrons come to Primo only to switch

over to the Aleph OPAC?

Content-related Questions

• What record sources are used most heavily?• Specifically, what Primo Central Index

collections are used most?• Do patrons take advantage of content-related

Primo features, like reviews/tags, recommended articles and virtual browse?

• What is the relative discovery rate of our print and electronic collections?

Three Examples

Usage of tabs

• Method: track clicks on tabs, using tab name as label

• Results: tabs associated with access get most usage, followed by tabs associated with details. Reviews/Tags tab got almost no clicks, and most clicks did not translate into someone leaving a review or adding a tag

• Decision: after correlating with data about number of tags and reviews, removed this tab

Facet usage

• Method: track clicks on facets, using facet header as event label

• Results: some facets (publication date, on shelf/access online, resource type) are used a lot, some are used very little (esp. journal title and author facets)

Facet usage, continued

• Decision: we talked about making changes to the way facets are displayed, renaming some of the facets, re-ordering the facets, or even hiding least-used facets, but decided to keep them the way they are

• Future steps: continue to monitor this, especially as new search personalization options are added in Primo 4.6

Usage of records by source

• Method: send event each time a link inside a record is clicked, using record source as the action and link text (in most cases) as the label

Category: OneSearch - Source TrackingAction: Aleph (deduped)Label: Access Online / Project Muse

Category: OneSearch - Source TrackingAction: Aleph (deduped)Label: Virtual Shelf

Usage of records by source, cont.

• Results: usage of our local Aleph records is just over half of total record usage

• This is especially surprising, given the huge number of Primo Central records and the fact that the default search scope includes both local and PCI records. One factor may be that we heavily weight our local records, but it may also reflect the preferences of our patrons

Usage of records by source, cont.

• Decisions: as far as I know, we haven’t made any changes to our local record weighting or to our PCI collection activations based on this data, but we have used it as we consider adding a new local collection (Center for Research Libraries catalog), and which search scope(s) we will add it to

Thanks! Questions?

Lauren AjamieElectronic Resources LibrarianUniversity of Notre Dame Hesburgh Librarieslajamie@nd.edu