Brown, Christopher C. “Collecting Usage Statistics for E-Government Resources.” Online Webinar, Federal Depository Library Program. Presentation through the U.S. Government Printing Office iCohere platform, 20 May 2014.

1. Collecting Usage Statistics for E-Government
Resources
Christopher C. Brown
University of Denver, University Libraries
cbrown@du.edu
May 20, 2014 -- Online via GPO’s iCohere Platform

2. PURL Primer
Source: http://www.fdlp.gov/collections/distribution/709-withdrawal-recall-destruction-procedures

3. The Problem
 We have statistics for
government documents
print circulation
• But our directors want statistics
• The viability of our depository
status may rest on our ability to
provide statistics
 We don’t have any
statistics for online usage

4. Statistics we don’t know
 Visits to online docs URLs by our users – we are
clueless!
 How many times URLs are visited by our users
 What titles are visited by our users
 What agencies are most popular with our users
 We don’t know the whole picture

5. How Many PURLS?
 142,117 records in CGP with PURLS (as of May 13,
2014).
 There are a total of 179,566 PURLS in the GPO
PURL database (as of May 13, 2014)
 At present, GPO creates about 850 PURLS each
month
Source – James Mauldin, GPO

6. Part 1: GPO Solution

7. PURL Referral Reporting
 The tool also provides a listing of the top fifty (50) referred PURL resources per
hostname and/or IP address with:
 The PURL path.
 The full path of the target URL for each PURL.
 The total requests for that individual PURL.
 A search link utilizing the CGP to view cataloging records for the individual PURL.
 GPO releases monthly PURL referral reports; however, these reports include
aggregate totals only. Referrals totals strip out bot traffic and focuses on patron
requests.
 The PURL Referral Reporting Tool is locked down to Federal depository libraries
only. Data is current as of the previous day. Historical data is available for twelve
months. Tool functionality may be expanded in the future to include greater
historical data retention and additional functionality based on funding and
community feedback.
 Source: http://www.fdlp.gov/23-about/projects/141-purl-enhancement-and-
stabilization
Since Dec. 1, 2010 the referral reporting system has been operational.

8. Steps to getting Custom Reports
 Gather the relevant hostnames or IP addresses for
your institution – sites where you have PURLs
 Your library catalog (maybe you have two versions like we do –
classic catalog, next-gen catalog
 Your web discover tool (if you have one)
 Your library instruction guides (like Libguides)
 Other Web pages that may contain PURLs
 Also consider using your institution’s numeric IP address
 Go to http://purlreferrals.fdlp.gov/ (You will need to
login with your depository number and your internal
password).

9. Run Your Query (login with Internal FDLP
Credentials)

10. Results of Your Query

11. Top 50 Results

12. Export to CSV (Open with Excel)

13. You can See Exact Titles for Top 50

14. Older PURL Referrals
http://www.fdlp.gov/file-repository/collection-management/purl-referrals
You can get older PURL referral reports from here:
Compare your hits against
other depositories

15. PURL Rot
 In theory, it would be a wonderful world if someone
behind a curtain at GPO would check every PURL
every day to check for errors. But that does not
happen. It is up to us – documents librarians – to
report these.

16. PURL Rot: Reporting a Broken PURL

17. PURL Rot: Keeping Track

18. PURL Retrieval Summary
 You can get the total PURL hits by month,
 Or the top 50 most popular hits
 You cannot get all specific URLs. No way to do a
more comprehensive analysis
 Statistics are ONLY for PURLS, not for any other
online government URLs
 Statistics can be incomplete at times (GPO server
down, etc.)

19. Part 2: Local Solutions

20. Objective
To track online government
document clickthroughs when
accessed via the online catalog
oNot possible to capture every use of government info by our users
oBut is possible to capture all clickthroughs via the OPAC

21. Different Approaches
GPO PURL Tracking Local URL Tracking
Any PURL clickthrough from an
institution
Any URL clickthrough via the OPAC
Broad view: top PURLS and overall
numbers
Narrow view: specific PURLS/URLS
and then can derive titles, SuDocs, etc.
Wait for GPO to aggregate data Instant access to data

22. Basic Idea: How it Works
 A URL is prepended to the PURL (or URL)
 This URL initially directs to a library-hosted web
server which traps for the date/time, PURL (or
URL), URL of requestor
 The user is then instantly redirected to the PURL (or
URL) site

23. Two Methods to Track Locally
 Prepend to PURL
 Method #1: trap for the URL, date – more difficult at
the end, but easier at first
 Method #2: trap also for a unique record number –
more difficult at first, but benefits later

24. A Simple Prepend URL
http://library.du.edu/clickthrough/index.php/clicks/?type=gov&url=

25. Clickthrough Dashboard

26. Benefits of Clickthrough Project
 We can provide meaningful stats to the library
director
 We can see high-use and low-use areas
 We can tell if users benefit from our special projects
 We can do reactive URL maintenance
 We can see turn-aways and other problems
 We can see search engine attacks
 We can see how our docs work within your discovery
tools

27. Local Use for Docs by FY

28. Specs: How to ask for a clickthrough system
 Project hosted on stable server (such as library Web server).
 Should be able to handle long URLs – up to 700 characters.
 Prepended URL sends request to library server.
 Included in prepended URL is cataloger-supplied 3-letter code of
URL type (ex: gov, cou, ran – any 3-letter combination that may
be needed in future).
 Server records date/time, IP address of requestor, 3-letter code
of URL type, and URL requested.
 Server redirects user to desired URL.
 Reporting mechanism available to gather clickthroughs.
 Archiving function available to archive stats.
 Ability to view archived records.
 Secure login for authorized users.
Just give this slide to a code-writer in your library
– and you may have a link-tracking system soon!

29. Local Solutions to Problem
http://www.fdlp.gov/file-repository/1051-tracking-online-document-usage-from-the-catalog

30. Further Reading

31. Questions?
Christopher C. Brown
University of Denver, University Libraries
cbrown@du.edu