Archive
Tick Tock, Time is Running Out! Submit your SpringyCamp Proposal Today
We’re seeking SpringyCamp proposals and there are only two days left to get your submission in!
What is SpringyCamp, you’re probably asking yourself! SpringyCamp is Springshare’s bi-annual virtual conference where you can learn how colleagues from around the world are using Springshare tools. Springshare4Everyone is this year’s conference theme and we’re looking for submissions on how you’re using Springshare products – easy peasy!
Submit your proposal by March 10th.
Back to School Checklist
The telltale signs are starting to show. Campus orientation tours are rolling past office windows. Freshmen are enrolling in classes. The energy on campus is starting to build. These are all signs that school is about to start! It’s time to spruce up those guides, ready the study room sign-up, update the FAQ, and give a lift to the digital branch. We’ve put together a quick check-list to help you get organized.
- First things first: guide cleanup time!
- Summer’s come to a close; time to unpublish LibGuides about summer programs and readings.
- Update your student employee/volunteer LibGuide with this year’s shifts and policies. LibGuides CMS users: remind students and volunteers to sign up for email alerts, then send out alerts any time you update the guide.
- It’s time to kick that E-Reserves program into high gear!
- Remind teachers and faculty to send in their E-Reserves with our handy E-Reserves Request Form.
- Get those E-Reserve items and courses loaded; check out our help guide for tips!
- It’s a great time to freshen up LibAnswers, too!
- Review any policy-related LibAnswers, to make sure they’re up-to-date.
- It’s a great time to advertise your LibAnswers service! Post an ad in the student newspaper, create promotional materials, check out our session on Advertising LibAnswers, and grab more tips on Advertising your SMS service.
- Get those dates and schedules in order with LibCal!
- If you’re using the Room Booking tool, now’s a great time to post fresh QR codes outside available study spaces – they make booking with mobile devices super easy!
- Make sure your personal scheduler is up to date & publicized - make it easy to consult the experts!
- Create a calendar for special events, & publicize it – share the iCal subscription link, and anyone who subscribes will see newly added events automatically!
- Make sure your LibAnalytics data collection is ready to go! Check out our Dataset Ideas for suggestions on what types of data to capture.
What are you doing to get ready for school? Share your suggestions and strategies in the comments!
Attention Data Ninjas: New in LibAnalytics – Dataset Templates
A brand new version of LibAnalytics is coming your way – and 10 out of 10 early-adopters agree, the new functionality is bananas-awesome. Here’s a quick taste:
- More field & data types, including multi-value select, date-pickers, and sliding scales, to name a few
- Enhanced Access Control limits access to Datasets to just users you designate
- New Widgets to make data capture by librarians and non-librarians easier
- New and Improved Charts with a bevy of new filtering and reporting options
For a great overview of the new functionality, check out our recorded overview: http://springshare.adobeconnect.com/p54pjo8900j
We’re also thrilled to introduce our newest cool feature - Dataset Templates. We’ve heard from many ninjas that the toughest part of getting started with LibAnalytics is creating Datasets (formerly “instances”), so we’ve come up with a little something to help. These templates were created by the Springy Trainers, and are based on the things *we* used to collect at our libraries, like:
- Instruction Session Stats
- Pre-Instruction & Post-Instruction Assessment
- Library Instruction Session Request Form
- Database Trial Feedback
- Reference Statistics
- Circ / Info Desk Statistics
- Liaison Program / Faculty Support
- Staff Presentations / Conferences
- Weeding Projects
- Website Feedback
- Book Purchase Request
- Foot Traffic / Study Room Statistics
You can copy these templates into your system (select Create New Dataset & use the dropdown to Copy Fields From Springy’s Templates), then change the fields and values as necessary to make things relevant for your own institution. To view the full list of Dataset templates & detailed instructions, visit the Help Site.
The new LibAnalytics represents an entirely new code base, so if you haven’t switched to the new LibAnalytics yet, we’ll be migrating clients in stages this summer. Please contact us at support@springshare.com and we’ll work out the best way & time to migrate your site to this awesome new system!
New in LibAnalytics: Duration Analysis
You probably know this about us by now, but when we hear great ideas from clients, we like to make them happen fast. Created thanks to a mix of great ideas and Ninja know-how, our new Duration Analysis report is a great way to view how much time you’re spending on transactions (instruction sessions, research consultations, etc.). Here’s how it works:
When you record a transaction, make sure you’re recording start and end time using the Time Stamp field:
Head to the Data Explorer, and generate a report based on any combination of fields and values. You’ll see a new report - Duration Analysis. Use this tab to discover:
- Total time spent on all transactions (how much time was spent delivering instruction/reference sessions?)
- Maximum & Minimum transaction durations (what’s the longest and shortest session time?)
- Average & Median transaction durations (what’s the average duration of your sessions?)
- Quick Links to the Longest and Shortest transactions (what’s this session that took 300 minutes?)
Plus, we’ve added a new report filter! The Optional Duration Filter filters reports based on transaction duration – use it to discover things like:
- Which transactions took < 30 minutes?
- Which transactions took > 60 minutes?
- Which transactions lasted exactly 45 minutes?
New LibAnalytics Features: Instance Designer and Widgets
We are announcing two important new features for LibAnalytics: Instance Designer and LibAnalytics Widgets. These new features open up a slew of possibilities to use LibAnalytics in a whole new way.
Our new Instance Designer makes it easy to fully customize the look and feel of your instance! It has everything from reordering fields using a drag-and-drop interface, to being able to define instructions and help text for each field. The new interface makes it easy to customize what your instance recording screen will look like.
And, we’re adding a new tool to your Data Ninja arsenal – LibAnalytics Widgets. Hold on to your hats, because we’re about to turn the concept of LibAnalytics “instances” on its ear!
When we talk about ”instances”, all we mean is “a set of data that libraries want to track”. Up until now, the librarians were the only ones who could record this data in LibAnalytics. But we got to thinking – what if we open data-recording to users? What about collecting patron feedback? Satisfaction surveys, feedback on library instruction, website feedback, database trials… why should librarians always be the ones entering data? Open the data recording and collection to everyone, and then use our awesome analytics tools to make sense of all your data.
Thus, LibAnalytics Widgets were born! Forged in the dark fires of our ninja enclave, LibAnalytics widgets give you the power to collect user feedback right from the source. For example, let’s say you want to collect feedback about your library website. Create an instance for “Website Feedback”, and embed a widget on your library website. You can have the feedback widget appear on page load, on page exit, on button click, etc. Examples:
Floating Button Widget (note the feedback button on the left side of the screen)
Embedded Text Widget (note the purple area below the banner)
Or send an email to faculty with a link to your survey, like this: http://demo.libanalytics.com/p.php?in=238
LibAnalytics now enables you to collect all kinds of data, from all kinds of sources, all in one place. You can browse the data, find patterns, generate statistics, and analyze stuff like there’s no tomorrow.
If you thought it doesn’t get any better, well it does – a single instance of LibAnalytics is free, so sign up today and get started on your Data Ninja skills.
Free LibCal and LibAnalytics – Sign Up Today!
We’re so excited, and we just can’t hide it! What’s got us so hyped up, you ask? We’re announcing *Free* subscriptions for our two newest products: LibCal and LibAnalytics. Pretty awesome right? We thought so too!
A free subscription to LibCal comes with all the bells and whistles – event registration management, personal schedulers, and room booking management. You get 3 calendars, 3 personal schedulers, and 3 room bookings – all free!
And our free LibAnalytics instance is also the whole enchilada – collect data points, record unlimited transactions, and view/download awesome reports.
We say this all the time, but we want you to know – we love being a part of the library community. We love working with clients and creating web apps that solve real problems for libraries. Giving something back for free, especially in these difficult budget times, is a way for us to say “thank you” for your continued support, and the trust you’ve placed in us.
With that in mind, we hope you’ll check out LibCal and LibAnalytics and sign up today!
LibAnalytics: Numerical Analysis, Kapow!
We’ve added a new tool to the LibAnalytics data arsenal – Numerical Analysis! It’s perfect for answering these types of questions:
- On average, how many people use your study rooms after 3pm on Thursdays?
- In July, how many people were in the building before 10am?
- What are the total and average number of attendees in your instruction sessions?
- Create an instance that contains numeric fields (head count, study room use, instruction attendance, etc.) & collect some data
- Head to the Data Explorer, and apply any filters you’d like (date/day/time, field values, etc.)
- Click “Apply Filters” – Numerical Analysis is the last tab option:
LibAnalytics: Customization Galore!
Last week we introduced you to our awesomesauce Cross Tab reports.
This week we’re all about bringing you the cherry on top: customization…and more customization!
1. Custom Ordering of Fields
You’re psyched you have so many options and can really record any data you want – we hear ya, it’s pretty darn sweet. But you also want to put them on the page in any order you want? Done.
For example, if you want to have a multiple choice field of “Location” and want one of the options to be “Other”, now you can put a free text field just under it and have people record what “Other” actually is.
Just think of the options…the freedom! Now go have fun rearranging your instances… 
2. Custom Head Section For Each Instance
What to the what now?! Each instance in LibAnalytics now has a custom Head section where you can insert your own custom CSS or JavaScript. Use this field to customize the look and feel of each instance like hiding some fields or labels or creating a different layout. Awesomesauce? Indeed!
LibAnalytics: Cross Tab Reports are here!
If you thought LibAnalytics was tasty, then our new awesome-sauce feature will blow your data tastebuds away! Cross Tab Reporting is like the umami of comparative statistics. It enables you to see a full comparison between any 2 multi-choice fields, making it easy to identify interdependencies between the data you track.
For instance, let’s say you’re tracking Reference transactions in your library. You might have chosen to track things like “Question Method” (in person, phone, email, IM, SMS) and “Who Asked the Question” (Undergraduate, Graduate, Faculty, Staff, Visitor). With Cross Tab Reports, you can create an instant comparison of the values in those two fields, making it easy to see where various users are asking questions:
Love it? Us too! Even better, you can filter cross tab report results by date range, day of the week / time of day, data entered, and/or text in the question. This helps reveal interdependencies in the data you track.
To get cooking with cross tab reports, LibAnalytics users can head to the Data Explorer, and select the “Cross Tab Report” tab. As always, thanks to the community for this most excellent feature suggestion!
