Thursday, July 07, 2011
OhioLINK Central Catalog Downtime
The OhioLINK Central Catalog will go down today at 12:15pm to migrate to a new server. The process should take 6-8 hours. In that time period, you will still be able to search the MU catalog and request books from other MU campuses, but OhioLINK searching will be unavailable. Thank you for your patience with the upgrade.
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
How was the library used in 2010-2011?
With the fiscal year just ending, here are the full annual stats for several of the Gardner-Harvey Library's (GHL) services. I hope you will find them useful to see how people use the library. How do you compare to the average GHL user?
These stats reflect what's happened this year, running from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011. Some stats we keep locally, others we pull from university-wide or OhioLINK-wide systems, and some are provided by database vendors.
Both a Borrower and a Lender Be
- GHL patrons checked out 5,045 books, DVDs, and videos from us (2,335 from our local collection, 1,756 ordered from other MU libraries, and 954 items ordered from OhioLINK - that means that well more than half of the items used by campus patrons came from libraries beyond GHL). That is a 3.9% increase over 2009-2010. We also received 68 articles, books, and audiovisual items from libraries worldwide.
- The GHL collection registered 5,986 checkouts (that's the 2,335 items checked out by Middletown patrons above, plus 2,037 items sent to OhioLINK users, and 1,614 sent to other MU libraries - that means that more than 60% of the uses of our materials came from libraries beyond GHL). That is a 3.9% increase over 2009-2010. We also sent 270 articles, books, and audiovisual items to libraries worldwide.
- GHL patrons checked out 4,168 reserve items from us (this includes faculty-placed course reserves, textbooks on reserve, laptops, Wii games, and other equipment). That is an 8.2% increase over 2009-2010.
- In addition to the printed or physical materials above, Middletown patrons have downloaded 10,026 e-books from the OhioLINK E-Book Center. That is a 45.4% increase over 2009-2010.
- In terms of building up our collection, Middletown faculty and staff ordered 1,312 items to add to our collection this year. That is a 22.3% decrease from 2009-2010, due to our mid-year budget reduction.
- We registered a total of 10,154 checkouts of items in our collection (reserves and circulating materials). The circulating items at GHL number 41,308, so each item in the collection circulated 0.24 times this year.
The Quest for Information
- Middletown patrons have performed 51,435 searches in databases provided to us by Ebsco and those hosted by OhioLINK. That is a 2.9% decrease from 2009-2010 (possibly due to more library users searching from off-campus, which are not tallied in our campus-specific statistics). 36% of our Ebsco database searches are done in Academic Search Complete (ASC), which is lower than the statewide average of 50% of Ebsco searches occurring in ASC among OhioLINK institutions. 79% of our searches in other OhioLINK databases happen in PsycINFO.
- Middletown patrons downloaded 24,365 full-text articles from the Electronic Journal Center. That is a 19.8% increase over 2009-2010. This is in addition to full-text articles found right within Ebsco or other databases.
- As part of getting to these databases, 51 people visit our web site every day. That's a total of 18,645 visits for the year, by 5,061 unique individuals. Visits and visitors are down about 6% from 2009-2010.
A Place for Work, Study, and Remove from the World
- GHL is open 65 hours per week.
- We average 286 visitors per day, for a total of 82,958 visits this year. This reflects a 10% increase over 2009-2010.
- We regularly schedule the library learning lab (GRD 111) for occasional class sessions. We also had 13 classes meet there weekly during fall semester and 9 met there during this spring. With some breaks in the early parts of the fall and spring semesters, we have been scheduling COMPASS placement testing sessions in the lab on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays for incoming Middletown students since March 2009.
- Our two STAR Lounges have been checked out 239 times this year. STAR Lounge 2 was also used for several weeks in the last half of the semester by two classes for their class meetings in both the fall and spring semesters.
Helping You Find What You Need
- Inside and outside of the library, we gave library instruction presentations in 82 classes this year, reaching 1854 students (an increase of 36% over 2009-2010). The courses represented were from 17 different departments.
- Our Blackboard Embedded Librarian program reached students in 60 course sections during the academic year (that is a 39% increase over 2009-2010). We reached over 1250 students through the program and helped them with their information needs.
What don't we know about how the library is used?
- One key part missing from these figures is off-campus use of library resources: all off-campus use is tallied as MU-wide use, so we do not know how many Middletown patrons are using databases from home.
- We don't have stats for all database searches - we're missing uses of Lexis-Nexis and other databases.
- We did run a survey this year to gather suggestions from the campus population at large on what we can do to improve the library. We hope you'll continue to let us know what you think about the library, what you need from us, and what materials we should order for the collection.
On Average
Taking these numbers and guesstimating a total Middletown community of 2500 students, faculty and staff members (and including community patrons), here's what can be said about the average person on campus. She:
- visits the library nearly every nine days.
- checks four items out from the library in a year (reserves and local/MU/OhioLINK collection items)
- performs 20 database searches per year.
- accesses the library web site seven times per year.
- views four e-books each year.
- participates in a library instruction session just less than once per year (if she is a student).
Thanks to everyone for making the library and its resources a vital part of your academic lives!
These stats reflect what's happened this year, running from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011. Some stats we keep locally, others we pull from university-wide or OhioLINK-wide systems, and some are provided by database vendors.
Both a Borrower and a Lender Be
- GHL patrons checked out 5,045 books, DVDs, and videos from us (2,335 from our local collection, 1,756 ordered from other MU libraries, and 954 items ordered from OhioLINK - that means that well more than half of the items used by campus patrons came from libraries beyond GHL). That is a 3.9% increase over 2009-2010. We also received 68 articles, books, and audiovisual items from libraries worldwide.
- The GHL collection registered 5,986 checkouts (that's the 2,335 items checked out by Middletown patrons above, plus 2,037 items sent to OhioLINK users, and 1,614 sent to other MU libraries - that means that more than 60% of the uses of our materials came from libraries beyond GHL). That is a 3.9% increase over 2009-2010. We also sent 270 articles, books, and audiovisual items to libraries worldwide.
- GHL patrons checked out 4,168 reserve items from us (this includes faculty-placed course reserves, textbooks on reserve, laptops, Wii games, and other equipment). That is an 8.2% increase over 2009-2010.
- In addition to the printed or physical materials above, Middletown patrons have downloaded 10,026 e-books from the OhioLINK E-Book Center. That is a 45.4% increase over 2009-2010.
- In terms of building up our collection, Middletown faculty and staff ordered 1,312 items to add to our collection this year. That is a 22.3% decrease from 2009-2010, due to our mid-year budget reduction.
- We registered a total of 10,154 checkouts of items in our collection (reserves and circulating materials). The circulating items at GHL number 41,308, so each item in the collection circulated 0.24 times this year.
The Quest for Information
- Middletown patrons have performed 51,435 searches in databases provided to us by Ebsco and those hosted by OhioLINK. That is a 2.9% decrease from 2009-2010 (possibly due to more library users searching from off-campus, which are not tallied in our campus-specific statistics). 36% of our Ebsco database searches are done in Academic Search Complete (ASC), which is lower than the statewide average of 50% of Ebsco searches occurring in ASC among OhioLINK institutions. 79% of our searches in other OhioLINK databases happen in PsycINFO.
- Middletown patrons downloaded 24,365 full-text articles from the Electronic Journal Center. That is a 19.8% increase over 2009-2010. This is in addition to full-text articles found right within Ebsco or other databases.
- As part of getting to these databases, 51 people visit our web site every day. That's a total of 18,645 visits for the year, by 5,061 unique individuals. Visits and visitors are down about 6% from 2009-2010.
A Place for Work, Study, and Remove from the World
- GHL is open 65 hours per week.
- We average 286 visitors per day, for a total of 82,958 visits this year. This reflects a 10% increase over 2009-2010.
- We regularly schedule the library learning lab (GRD 111) for occasional class sessions. We also had 13 classes meet there weekly during fall semester and 9 met there during this spring. With some breaks in the early parts of the fall and spring semesters, we have been scheduling COMPASS placement testing sessions in the lab on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays for incoming Middletown students since March 2009.
- Our two STAR Lounges have been checked out 239 times this year. STAR Lounge 2 was also used for several weeks in the last half of the semester by two classes for their class meetings in both the fall and spring semesters.
Helping You Find What You Need
- Inside and outside of the library, we gave library instruction presentations in 82 classes this year, reaching 1854 students (an increase of 36% over 2009-2010). The courses represented were from 17 different departments.
- Our Blackboard Embedded Librarian program reached students in 60 course sections during the academic year (that is a 39% increase over 2009-2010). We reached over 1250 students through the program and helped them with their information needs.
What don't we know about how the library is used?
- One key part missing from these figures is off-campus use of library resources: all off-campus use is tallied as MU-wide use, so we do not know how many Middletown patrons are using databases from home.
- We don't have stats for all database searches - we're missing uses of Lexis-Nexis and other databases.
- We did run a survey this year to gather suggestions from the campus population at large on what we can do to improve the library. We hope you'll continue to let us know what you think about the library, what you need from us, and what materials we should order for the collection.
On Average
Taking these numbers and guesstimating a total Middletown community of 2500 students, faculty and staff members (and including community patrons), here's what can be said about the average person on campus. She:
- visits the library nearly every nine days.
- checks four items out from the library in a year (reserves and local/MU/OhioLINK collection items)
- performs 20 database searches per year.
- accesses the library web site seven times per year.
- views four e-books each year.
- participates in a library instruction session just less than once per year (if she is a student).
Thanks to everyone for making the library and its resources a vital part of your academic lives!
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