Keeping a Gimlet Eye on Reference Data

Keeping a Gimlet Eye on Reference Data

Ken SimonReference and Instruction Technologies Librarian

Loyola Marymount UniversityLos Angeles, California

Twitter: @ksimon Email: kenneth.simon@lmu.edu

READ scaleDr. Bella Karr Gerlich

http://readscale.org/

Librarian Training• Where is “The Sun Also Rises?” Directional or Reference?

• It depends!• How do I request a book from storage? Policy or Reference?

• It depends!• How do I access a database from off-campus? Technical or policy?

• [Well, you get it by now.]• Difficulty of non-reference questions on the READ scale:

• Policy = always 2• Directional = usually 1• Referrals: how long you spend, not difficulty of question

Student Training and Evaluation

• Blackboard training module + exercises• Guides to Gimlet, READ Scale, tagging• Easy evaluation of students: search by initials• Flag or email questions for follow-up

Gimlet LibGuide for LMU

http://libguides.lmu.edu/gimlet

DATA DUMP

2 years = 29,000 records

It’s Not Social Tagging!

It’s Not Social Tagging!

It’s Not Social Tagging!

It’s Not Social Tagging!

It’s Not Social Tagging!

Crunch all you want…

• Excel: sort and filter by fixed fields

• Content analysis using Simple Concordance Program:– Directional: led to signage improvements– Technology: Fixes, training, State of Technology in

the Library report for campus I.T.

• Next up: coding the data

Coded Data

Reference TagsNote: these tags differ from the ones used in Gimlet

1 = Catalog Use & Lookup 2 = Database Help & Use3 = External Web page 4 = Internal Web page 5 = Reference Book (print)6 = Referral7 = Reserves 8 = Retrieval9 = Other99 = empty / unknown

Conclusions

• To assess and improve, you need data!• It takes work to get the data into shape.• You can’t escape subjectivity…

…but you can help to manage it.• Experiment with tools for analysis:– Excel, concordance software, codebook/SPSS

• Why?– To better fulfill our mission– Potential cost savings, better use of staff time

Credit where credit is due:

• Alexander Justice• Susan Gardner• Shannon Billimore• Courtney Hoffner• Jason Campos• Meg Gregory• Bonnie Rainey

Keeping a Gimlet Eye on Reference Data

Ken SimonReference and Instruction Technologies Librarian

Loyola Marymount UniversityLos Angeles, California

Twitter: @ksimon Email: kenneth.simon@lmu.edu