Drilling Down Into Your Library Data: Effective use of Search Data to Improve Service and Performance

This session will present the findings taken from a public library “big data” set of user queries posed to the Edmonton Public Library during the summer months from June 21-September 21, 2014. Some of the questions this “big data” set can answer include determining variation in the number of library catalogue searches by day of the week, users’ preferred formats of materials, the long tail of library collections, and the topics of materials being searched for by Edmonton Public Library users. Implications for studying user behavior using big datasets are discussed along with areas for future research.
Learning Objectives:

• What materials users are searching for
• Kinds of questions large datasets can answer
• Data analytics