Responding to ACRL's Annual Survey Request

WebVoyage usage statistics are available at http://i-share.carli.illinois.edu/acrlstats/. These were developed in response to requests from I-Share libraries for help responding to ACRL's annual request for the approximate number of "virtual visits" to the library catalog.

Beginning in April 2007, data are available for each calendar month, in "raw" and summarized "report" form. Values are tab-separated, suitable for importing into the spreadsheet or database of your choice.

Below is an excerpt from the file 2007-04-Raw.txt:

Column A is the WebVoyage instance to which a connection was made (in this case the Aurora University library's local OPAC).

Column B is the IP address from which the user(s) connected.

Column C is the PAGE= value in the connecting URL. Possible values are:

• null (i.e. blank, or no value, if the user connected to a simple URL such as http://i-share.carli.illinois.edu/aru, rather than to an elaborated URL such as http://i-share.carli.illinois.edu/aru/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First)

• First (the default search page for the library's catalog. For most I-Share libraries the default search page is the Quick Search page.)

• bbSearch (the Advanced Search page)

• pbLogon (the Patron Login page, which comes up if the user tries to link directly to the My Account page)

• rbSearch (the Course Reserve Search page)

• sbSearch (the Quick Search page)

Column D is the count of new connections established from that IP address to that WebVoyage page during the month. Returns to a search page within the same WebVoyage session are not included in the count.

If the above excerpt were the entire dataset for the month then the corresponding report file would look like this:

aru    CATALOG
16     TOTAL SESSIONS
12     LOCAL SESSIONS
4      NON-LOCAL SESSIONS
1      PAGE= SESSIONS
15     PAGE=First SESSIONS

CARLI has attempted to summarize the number of "local" and "non-local" sessions, based on IP address. It is possible, however, that an IP address that did not resolve to aurora.edu (the domain name that CARLI counts as "local" for Aurora University) was nonetheless a connection that originated on the Aurora University campus. It is likewise possible that an IP address that did resolve to aurora.edu was in fact the address of the campus proxy server, and represented connections from users who were not physically on the Aurora Campus. Libraries may therefore wish to review the raw data files and to correct the local/non-local counts based on their more intimate knowledge of their campus networks.

View Calendar    Email Lists

Search

Featured Links

CARLI Digital Collections
CARLI Systems Status
CARLI Blog
CARLI Wiki
CARLI twitter
Information for ILLINET Libraries
Newsletter Archives