Browsing by Author "Hanson, Cody"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Affinity Strings: Enterprise data for resource recommendations
    (Code4Lib Journal, 2008-12-15) Hanson, Cody; Nackerud, Shane; Jensen, Kristi
    'The University of Minnesota Libraries have created a MyLibrary portal, with databases and e-journals targeted to users, based on their affiliations. The University's enterprise authentication system provides an "affinity string", now used to personalize the MyLibrary portal. This affinity string automates discovery of a user's relationship to the University--describing a user’s academic department and degree program or position at the University. Affinity strings also provide the Libraries with an anonymized view of resource usage, allowing data collection that respects users' privacy and lays the groundwork for automated recommendation of relevant resources based on the practices and habits of their peers.'
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    Discoverability Phase 1 Final Report
    (2009-03-13) Hanson, Cody; Hessel, Heather; Barneson, John; Boudewyns, Deborah K. Ultan; Fransen, Jan; Friedman-Shedlov, Lara; Hardy, Martha; Rose, Chris; Stelmasik, Barb; Traill, Stacie
    In October 2008, the Web Services Steering Committee at the University of Minnesota Libraries created the Discoverability exploratory subgroup, charged to recommend ways to make relevant resources more visible and easier to find, particularly within the user’s workflow. This report shares the findings of Phase 1, in which the primary activity was data‐gathering and analysis. Phase 2 of the group’s work will take the discovery principles identified here and recommend specific strategies for the future. The report consists of four main sections. The first section is a brief description of the process and methodology. The second is a discussion of five key trends related to discovery that were identified in the literature, including a description of how each trend is reflected in current use of local systems. The third section contains a set of suggested principles to guide future decisions related to discovery. Finally, we have collected and analyzed usage data from many of our local systems. These reports are collected in our fourth section and are summarized in “A Month of Library Discovery”. We have also included specific recommendations regarding future data‐gathering and analysis. Our appendices include a copy of the group’s charge, a review of discovery principles at peer institutions, and a set of web statistics reports for the University Libraries’ many websites.
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    Discoverability Phase 2 Final Report
    (2011-02-04) Hanson, Cody; Hessel, Heather; Boudewyns, Deborah K. Ultan; Fransen, Jan; Friedman-Shedlov, Lara; Hearn, Stephen; Theis-Mahon, Nicole; Morris, Darlene; Traill, Stacie; West, Amy
    The Discoverability Phase 2 group was charged in spring 2010 to generate a vision for the University Libraries’ discovery environment. In addition, the group was asked to build on the work of Phase 1 (see the Phase 1 report here: http://purl.umn.edu/48258), addressing some of the practical implications of decentralized discovery by recommending strategies for making local collections discoverable in external systems, and for integrating remotely-managed data into the local discovery environment.
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    Discoverability: Investigating the Academic Library's Changing Role in Connecting People to Resources
    (2011-10-12) Fransen, Jan; Boudewyns, Deborah K. Ultan; Hanson, Cody; Hessel, Heather; Friedman-Shedlov, Lara; Traill, Stacie
    In October 2008, a small group at the University of Minnesota Libraries set out to explore the concept of discoverability of the Libraries’ resources. Commissioned by the Web Services Steering Committee, the group identified trends in user behavior and analyzed data available from library systems and used the results to develop a set of principles. These principles are helping to guide the Libraries’ strategic decisions as they relate to discovery. This case study describes how the group performed its analysis, identifies questions and issues uncovered in the process, and provides examples of how the guiding principles have affected planning and analysis throughout the Libraries.
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    Put Your Money Where The Mouse is: Tools and Techniques for Making Informed Design Decisions
    (2015-03-19) Larson, Eric; Hanson, Cody
    Last spring we spoke at the Library Technology Conference about the process we used to redesign our library’s website, and in particular, how we focused on our homepage, our most-used page by far. Having launched our site, we were eager to learn how well we were meeting the needs of our users, and set out to gather detailed data about user interactions with our homepage. We developed a custom javascript library to capture user interaction data on our homepage, anonymously recording each link that is clicked and every search query performed in Google Analytics. Analysis of the click events has shown us clearly those features of our page that engage our users, and those that may just be distractions. Meanwhile, the collection of search query terms allows us to examine the most common discovery trends and evaluate the relevancy of search results from our catalog. Our homepage serves many purposes and many constituencies, and every design decision is an exercise in balancing user needs and organizational priorities. Our homepage usage data gives us a realistic measure of our users’ revealed priorities, and forces necessary, if sometimes uncomfortable conversations about how we balance user productivity and efficiency against our institutional desire to promote services, news and events, and less-used parts of our collections. In this session, we’ll describe in detail the techniques we used to gather and analyze these data, as well as other methods to achieve similar results with less custom development. We’ll also discuss the changes we’ve made to our site as a result, and how we’re using this information in conversations about site and service priorities.