How do I track simple library stats quickly?

August 26, 2008 8:34 AM

I'm a librarian and general tech-assistance resource at a high school library. (So I also do password changes for school accounts, fix the copier, and put paper in the printer, besides reference questions and more involved projects.) The classic way to track what questions a librarian answers is with a piece of paper and hash marks. Due to our paper reduction desires (and my desire to not have a piece of paper taking up valuable desk space), I'd really like a way to track this via computer. We want to keep simple stats both so we can demonstrate what we're doing that isn't a big obvious project, but also so we can show if specific choices have a very high staff-time cost that keeps us from other things. (Like how they decided to handle student passwords this year.)

What I'd really love is something that would let me click inside a box, and register it as a click, and tell me the running total (both for type of action, and total actions that day.) I'm hoping for something like Joe's Goals, but with a little more space (because I'll have days where there are dozens of checks in a particular category.)

What I'm looking for:
- A web solution would be ideal, but a program on my computer would possibly work. (Windows XP system - webwise, we're running Firefox 2.)

- All I care about is the number of times I've done that thing, not how long it takes. (i.e. "25 password changes, 20 requests for laptops, 3 reference questions, and 1 copier issue")

- I may have 30-50 checks in a given item on some days - whatever method I use has to scale

- Many tasks are very quick and at times we're very busy: I want to simplify tracking as much as I can. I'm worried about the potential for typos/errors if I track in Excel if I get interrupted.

- I need to track 10-15 categories (password changes, computer requests, reference questions, putting paper in the copier, etc.)

- A notes field would be good.

- Some kind of daily/weekly summary would be ideal, but I can do that in Excel if needed.

Is there anything out there like this? Or any other suggestions that make tracking quick and painless?

posted by modernhypatia to technology (17 comments total)

This sounds like it could be a great project for students in your one of school's more advanced computer programming classes.
posted by onshi at 8:58 AM on August 26, 2008

There's the hard way, I suppose: get someone to set up an SQL database and web front end -- smart techie students in want of candy are in every school. I volunteered at my high school library; had I known SQL at the time I woulda helped.

Way back in the day, ClarisWorks (now AppleWorks, now defunct) used to have a reasonable self-contained database system that didn't require much effort.
posted by spamguy at 8:59 AM on August 26, 2008

Heh, my job is totally based off SQL, so I'm tempted to use it as a solution for everything. Using SQL for your situation is like a flamethrower to kill a fly. Microsoft Access is the next step down, and part of Microsoft Office, which your school better darn have somewhere. As long as this system is limited to a few computers and low traffic (i.e., you don't plan to run a web server off these stats), Access would be much wiser.
posted by spamguy at 9:06 AM on August 26, 2008

At my library we have these clicky wheel things that keep a running tally of how many times you've clicked - one for directional queries, one for short ref, and one for long ref. I have no idea where they came from, but it's pretty simple to just read the total off at the end of the day and note that down.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 9:08 AM on August 26, 2008

Can't you use a wiki as some sort of "digital paper". I'm thinking something like TiddlyWiki.
posted by unexpected at 9:10 AM on August 26, 2008

Google Docs has a very simple "New Form" function. Create a question saying "What task did you complete?" and have it as your required question, you can have another question that is a text box for a comment if you need it. It outputs to an excel, but will avoid the problem of typos or so on.
posted by Iteki at 9:21 AM on August 26, 2008

A real quick and dirty solution might be to create an online form via Google Docs. I created an example input form with some of your potential actions. The results are automatically compiled in a spreadsheet and you can create charts and summaries from there. This might not fit your specific needs, but it's an idea of how you might get started. Best of luck!
posted by bengilbert at 9:22 AM on August 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

Example of the google solution. Took about two minutes to set up, and each entry is timestamped automatically in the excel.
posted by Iteki at 9:27 AM on August 26, 2008

I'm going to have to second onshi. Most helpdesk people log insane amounts of information, and are based around opening tickets with lots of info in them. This really doesn't fit what you're looking for, which is something insanely easy-to-use. And really, I can't think of any applications that are based around this functionality. You could maybe go for a "voting" interface, but they're not going to have a "Notes" field ("Note: I really couldn't make up my mind on this one, but I ended up voting for Obama..."). And they're probably going to make it so you can't just sit there and press buttons repeatedly ("Note: I really liked Obama, so I kept pressing the button to vote for him until my finger got tired...") But it'd be a fairly easy task for a high school CS student to write. (And besides, it seems like e-voting systems are notorious for not even counting right?)

I would recommend, though, that you have a few more buttons, so you can track "Adding paper to Printer 3," or "Changing toner in Printer 2," which would also allow you to track resource usage. And you might consider adding keyboard shortcuts, so you just press "F4" instead of fumbling for the mouse to click a button when you're busy.

Would this be on a 'dedicated' computer, though? I'm worried that your coworker might be busy checking out books, meaning you couldn't log things as they happened.
posted by fogster at 9:29 AM on August 26, 2008

Well hell, preview woulda been my friend if I had used it.
posted by Iteki at 9:29 AM on August 26, 2008

I would use Access as well. It's been a few years, so I may not have the right terms.. but you could create a front end for it in Access. I would have a few buttons with what you're doing. Maybe one for copier trouble, paper refill, password reset, reference question, etc etc. I'm sure that it's possible to make one of those buttons increase a field by 1 (maybe with a macro or something). Throw a notes field next to each button, or maybe one big notes field at the bottom. You could organize that by day within the database and run reports and other things on it.

Then, you put that entire thing on a shared drive, and access it from each PC that you're on.

We used a similar system at work to keep track of some IT information (Mainframe LU's..) and it works well.

Like I said, I haven't messed with Access since high school (5 years ago..), but I'm pretty sure I could figure out how to throw that together in half a day or so. I bet there are kids at your school that could do it much quicker.
posted by pete0r at 9:37 AM on August 26, 2008

In my library, I track calls, reference questions, and other little statistical crap on an excel spreadsheet. Days down the side, "tasks" across the top. You can use the magic of excel to add up and parse all your numbers.

Collecting daily library statistics is an annoying reality - don't overthink it.
posted by gyusan at 9:39 AM on August 26, 2008

Sounds like you can use a ticketing system. RT is free, but I dont believe runs it on windows/cygwin. This one does, but ive never used it.

Seconding Access, if that doesnt work for you. Start by creating a form with the items you need.
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:23 AM on August 26, 2008

I'd do it with a text-only interface, very old school: print a menu like "C - copier trouble, A - answer question, L - laptop", then just accept text input followed by Enter.

The first letter of the input is for the task, the rest is a note. So typing "a dinosaurs" enters a "checkmark" in the answer column and an associated note. Your virtual sheet of paper could be an hash table or an SQLite table.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 11:00 AM on August 26, 2008

This may or may not be helpful in your given situation, but looking into options I found ChoreWars, which racks up experience points for players based on completion of tasks/chores and seems like the most fun approach I've seen so far.
posted by notashroom at 11:39 AM on August 26, 2008

Better option: take a look at ididwork.com. It looks really simple and straightforward. Use tags for categories like printer/copier, research question, etc., enter something in the description field (refilled paper, paper jam, French Revolution, a hash mark, whatever) and it will tally by tags for you and/or your team.
posted by notashroom at 7:36 AM on August 27, 2008

Thanks for all the comments - some notes, in case it helps anyone.

Re: getting someone to design something: we don't have programming classes, for convoluted reasons having to do with the school's liberal arts focus (so we have Graphic Arts classes, but not programming.) I might be able to find a student who could do something, but it'd take some doing, and most of our really intense programmer types graduated last year, and the new crop takes time to develop.

On computers: It'd be on my desktop machine which no one else uses. (we have a circulation desk machine, and my boss has a desktop machine.) Access from other computers is not a huge issue: it's unlikely I'd need it from elsewhere.

Iteki - Thanks! I really appreciate the mock-up, and that looks like it might solve my issues very tidly. I'm testing it right now, since if I decide it doesn't work, I'll still be able to get the data out easily.

For the people who suggested Access, that might also be an option (except that I sometimes find issues with it being a resource hog when I'm in the middle of high-demand tasks in our cataloging module. Stuff slows down painfully.)

Again, many thanks for thoughts!
posted by modernhypatia at 7:37 AM on August 27, 2008