Focus on Assessment - Jun 6, 2011

By Karen Schwentner

For a few years, the University Libraries has implemented Google Analytics code on University Libraries
web pages. We’ve been tracking hits and trends, and generating reports as requested. The Google
Analytics Hot Team, charged this summer, is going to take web analytics to the next step by providing
reports to libraries and departments on traffic data, search terms and statistics. First, we’d like to know
how you would use this information – and how often you’d want it.

The benefits of consistent reporting include determining trends on our sites, discovering what works and
what doesn’t, and finding what truly interests our users. Usability studies have given us part of the picture
about successes and misses on our websites; analyzing traffic and trends is another important aspect.
Combining both strategies will allow us to make adjustments to better inform our patrons and increase
visitor satisfaction.

Why Google Analytics? We’ve chosen Google Analytics as the tool for this job because it’s open source,
at no cost to us, and quite popular across the web. According to Built With Technology, a site that gathers
weekly usage information about the most popular technology used on the web, Google Analytics is
currently in use at approximately 57% of the 10,000 most popular websites.¹ An April 17, 2011 article in
The Chronicle of Higher Education discusses how colleges can derive enormous rewards by analyzing
web data, improve first-time users’ experiences to gain more admissions, and likewise, not turn
prospective students away due to a bad experience online. This analysis of web data was drawn from
Google Analytics. ² Also, an article in the Journal of Web Librarianship entitled, “Using Google
Analytics for Improving Library Website Content and Design: A Case Study” discusses a similar topic.
The Rutgers-Newark Law Library for the Center of Law and Justice used Google Analytics to determine
many aspects of visitor behavior and the pages they hit, used that data to modify the website, then
compared the usage data before and after the changes. The results indicated that more traffic came into
their website, visitors were discovering better navigation and returning to the site often (increased
loyalty). ³

An impromptu question to a couple of listservs revealed that many other CIC and ARL libraries have also
implemented Google Analytics or some other type of web assessment tool to monitor traffic and
navigation. Some libraries enhance their tracking efforts with additional products or write code to address
their particular needs. Most who answered conduct in-depth analysis only on an ad hoc basis.

Google Analytics has the capacity to generate 85 different reports. To narrow our focus on what is
important to us, we want to know how you would use web analytics data. Soon, you will see an email
with a link to a survey asking a few questions about web analytics, and how you would best benefit from
web analytics reports. The Google Analytics Hot Team will set up an information dissemination process
based on your input, and you will experience for yourself the significance of web analytics.

1. source: http://trends.builtwith.com/
2. Keller, Josh. “Colleges Rehab Their Web Sites for Major Payoffs” The
Chronicle of Higher Education, 17 Apr. 2011. Web. 27 May 2011. http://
chronicle.com/article/Colleges-Rehab-Their-Web-Sites/127170/.
3. Fang, Wei. “Using Google Analytics for Improving Library Website Content
and Design: A Case Study.” Library Philosophy and Practice 2007 (June),
LPP Special Issue on Libraries and Google

Google Analytics Hot Team
Michelle Belden
Andrew Calvin
Patricia Hswe
Ryan Johnson
Mary Fran McLaughlin
Karen Schwentner (chair)
Alan Shay
Ann Snowman