Introducing Suma:An open source tool to aid in

assessment of reference services

Joyce ChapmanNorth Carolina State University Libraries

RUSA MARS Hot Topics in Electronic Records GroupALA: June 25, 2011

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Problem statement

• Many libraries perform manual counts of patron activities (reference transactions, headcounts, group study, laptop use)

• The process involves tedious collection mechanisms, lots of paperwork, and much room for error

• There is no coordinated effort to help departments analyze their data

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Our solution

An open source tablet and web-based application to aid library staff in gathering, storing, exporting, analyzing, and visualizing data about patron activities across spaces/activities/time and around events

One of our first use cases:• Reference transactions

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Why do we care?

With data about different patterns in reference transactions across library spaces we can– Improve staffing models– Make informed technology purchases– Improve signage– Take an evidence-based approach to planning

future services and spaces

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Missing skill set

• Data analysis: often an unmet need• Everyone is asked to perform analysis, often

no additional staff or training are provided to build the necessary skill set

• Many departments would love to be able to do more in depth analysis, but just don’t have the staff support

Our current practice

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What do we track manually?

• Space: Transactions by different reference desk locations

• Time: Date and hour of the day• Content type: Directional, print/copy,

research, or computing• Medium: In-person, phone, chat, direct, email

Problems of current practice

• Interpreting other people’s handwriting• Re-entering data, duplication of effort• Data on the file system is messy• Information spread across many spreadsheets• Missing data, data that is not interoperable• No tracking of central “events”

Problems of current practice

• Inconsistent data• Decentralized data storage • Uncontrolled vocabularies• No dedicated staff to help with data analysis

= High barriers to analysis and data reuse

in the current system

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SumaA pocket data analyst for every librarian

Tablet-based data collection tool

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What is the system?

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Staff as stationary data collectors

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Staff as mobile data collectors

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Count via “thumb thump”

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Data collection tool demo

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Data collection tool demo

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Browser-based data dashboard

• “Chart wizard” will lead staff through a series of choices to produce charts comparing different aspects of data

• Charts can be exported for print or web• Data in charts can be downloaded as

delimited/Excel files

What kinds of data analysis?

Compare an activity across multiple spacesCompare multiple activities in one spaceAnalyze trends over…• Fiscal years• Academic semesters• Weeks of the semester• Days of the week• Hours of the day

Analyze aggregate ratios

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Timeline

Private beta testing releaseAugust 2011. We are looking for enthusiastic and involved

testers who want to try out the data collection client and provide detailed feedback.

Open beta testing releaseLate fall 2011

Incremental updatesThrough 2012, adding visualization capabilities, events, etc.

Suma project team

• Jason Casden (project lead) • Joyce Chapman• Eric McEachern• Rusty Earl • Rob Rucker• Hill Taylor

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Thanks!

ContactJoyce Chapman – joyce_chapman@ncsu.edu

More infohttps://github.com/cazzerson/SpaceUsageCensusToolkithttp://www.lib.ncsu.edu/dli/projects/spaceassesstool

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