Understanding Use

Web Analytics

Resources and Tools

Understanding Use

Do you know how users are searching for, finding, and using your digital content? Gathering data and stories about collection use can help you make the case for allocating funding to digital projects and can inform your decisions about what to digitize next. A solid plan for documenting and evaluating collection use will also strengthen your grant proposals and fundraising efforts. 

One way to approach evaluation is simply by paying attention to what your users say and do. What are they searching for in your digital collections? Are they finding what they were looking for? What discoveries have they made? With these kinds of interactions, you might want to follow up to ask for more information, either informally or using some kind of survey tool. 

Methods for gathering information about use:

• Evaluation surveys
• Log of patron contacts (for example, keeping track of the number of research inquiries or reproduction requests you receive)
• Attendance numbers at project launch events or other related programming
• Focus groups or individual interviews
• Social listening (for example, observing the comments on photos posted to Facebook or Instagram for recurring themes)
• Web analytics

Evaluation Survey Examples:

• Digital Archives Survey 2020, Huna Heritage Foundation (Alaska)
• Marshfield Story Project Survey, Jaquith Public Library (Vermont)

Web Analytics

Google and other search engines, and Facebook and other social media platforms, all track lots and lots of information referred to as web analytics. Relying only on a single metric, like pageviews, won’t give you a full picture of use and engagement, but considering web analytics in combination with user feedback, research requests, and other data can help you understand and demonstrate the impact of your digital work.

Web analytics might help you answer questions such as:

• What do people search for that brings them to your digital collection? (keywords)
• Where were they before they came to your website? (referrals)
• How long do they stay on your website? (bounce rate)
• Which items in your collection get the most attention? (pageviews)

Resources and Tools 

• Social Media Analytics: What to Measure and Why. [recorded webinar]. OCLC, 2017. 
• Szajewski, Michael. Using Google Analytics Data to Expand Discovery and Use of Digital Archival Content. Practical Technology for Archives, 2013.
• Listen To This! How To Use Social Listening To Gain New Insight and Catch Promotional Opportunities for Your Library. Super Library Marketing: Practical Tips and Ideas for Library Promotion, 2021.
• Google Analytics Usage Reports for CARLI Digital Collections. Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois, 2022. Includes explanation of various fields in Google Analytics reports.