Impression on LibInsight or Tableau

[Vickery Lebbin]

Hi ARL Assessment Folks,

Greetings from Hawaii. If any of you are using LibInsight or Tableau to gather and analyze data I would appreciate hearing your impression and advice.

We have a group exploring establishing a “data dashboard” to enable the library to look at cost and use of library materials over time and in different categories (electronic, print, media, and digital repositories). The group has recommended using either LibInsight or Tableau. I’m interested in not only how these tools could be useful for analyzing collections but compiling other data (instruction, reference, ILL, title counts) required for external reporting.

Thanks much,
Vicky

Vicky Lebbin
Interim Associate University Librarian
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Hamilton Library

[Becky Croxton]

Hi Vicky and all,

At UNC Charlotte, we use LibInsight to capture data and Tableau to visualize (and analyze) data.  I find that the Tableau dashboards are extremely helpful when it comes time for reporting. I upload the majority of visualizations to Tableau Public; some visualizations I make visible to anyone on the Internet, others I restrict so that only people with the link can find.

To assist the library with access to these dashboards, I have created an Assessment Portal on our Library's Intranet, organized by different units and functions and added access to the dashboards accordingly. If you would like to share screenshots or a link to the Tableau Public site, please send me a direct email (racr...@uncc.edu) and I'll be happy to share! 

Rebecca A. Croxton, Ph.D.

Professor, Head of Assessment

J. Murrey Atkins Library, UNCC

9201 University City Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28223

Phone: 704-687-0480

[Herzog, Andy M]

Hello,

 

At UT Arlington, we use libinsight lite to gather data (along with libanswers and suma). Tableau and excel to visualize some data.  Libinsight lite has some dashboard functionality, but I haven’t explored it yet. 

 

I mainly learned by exploring, but I have had some found some helpful content on coursera and linkedin learning.  Just a heads up, there is one tableau series on linkedin learning that is really boring and one that is quite good J.  As a side note, I have found the book Storytelling with Data by Knaflic to also be extremely helpful and as important as understanding the tools themselves.  

 

Hope that is helpful. If anybody has any specific questions, feel free to shoot me an email.

 

Best,

 

Andy Herzog

Director of Assessment

UT Arlington Libraries

amhe...@uta.edu

orcid.org/0000-0002-7680-4676

Chat with me on Teams! 

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[Gina Petersen]

Hello,

 

I find dashboards in LibInsight Lite lacking on two fronts that make it not useful for my library’s needs.

 

First, a single row on a dashboard (which can be 1 -3 charts) can only pull from a single dataset.  

Therefore, I can’t put teaching and research consultations on the same row.

 

Second, it has a heavy emphasis on calendar years. Data can be aggregated monthly or yearly. I often want to look at weekly aggregates or compare fiscal years. Tableau allows you set the start of a fiscal year. Or you can add a column in Excel to calculate fiscal year and create views using pivots tables.

 

Also, we use LibCal and LibAnswers. I wish I could pull those stats into LibInsight without needing to download and upload.

 

All that said, LibInsight has a flatter learning curve and the dashboard capabilities are part of the cost of the product. If you already have LibInsight, it may be worth exploring.

 

Sincerely,

Gina

 

Gina Petersen (she/her/hers)

Assessment Librarian

Northwestern University Libraries

Northwestern University

www.library.northwestern.edu

gina.p...@northwestern.edu

[Colleen Bell]

I have been working with Tableau for several years now. I got interested after attending a couple of sessions at the Canadian Library Assessment Workshop. I took one half-day workshop there, then started playing on my own. Once I had the basics, I found that using Google was my best friend, and it led me to the Tableau knowledgebase and community. I cannot say enough about the importance of the Tableau community and their willingness to help you find a solution when the knowledgebase didn’t have an answer.

I also find that working on an actual project, rather than the dataset that Tableau provides, was way more productive in terms of my own learning. 

Colleen

--
Colleen Bell, MLIS
(she/her/hers)

Information Literacy & Web Services Librarian
University of the Fraser Valley
33844 King Road, Abbotsford, BC  V2S 7M8
Phone: 604.504.7441 x4396
Email: collee...@ufv.ca 
Office: G193d (Abbotsford)
Web: https://library.ufv.ca/

Chief Negotiator & Steward, Academic Support Faculty
UFV Faculty & Staff Association
Email: negot...@ufv-fsa.ca (please use a non-UFV email address)
Email: steward_aca...@ufv-fsa.ca (please use a non-UFV email account)

Web: http://www.ufv-fsa.ca/

University of the Fraser Valley is situated on S'olh Temexw (“our land, our world"), the traditional, unceded territory of the Stó:lō people. Since before the first sunrise, the “People of the River” have walked upon and nurtured the lands on which I work, learn, and organize. As a settler, I acknowledge that I am an uninvited guest on these lands; as such, I have a responsibility to honour the original peoples through the work that I do, both as a librarian, or caretaker of knowledge, and as an organizer, through which I seek to eliminate the systems of oppression that foster social injustice.

[James Stemper]

Vicky,

In addition to what Gina said, we've been very impressed with Tableau's ability to connect directly to just about anything--our ILS, Iliad, EZProxy, Google Analytics, etc.--and to combine data sources in a dashboard. Makes updating much easier. :)

Jim

Jim Stemper
University of Minnesota Libraries
170 Wilson Library | 309 - 19th Avenue South | Mpls., MN 55455
stem...@umn.edu | 612-624-7082 | ORCID: 0000-0001-8404-8818

[Kirsten Kinsley]

Hi Vicky,

Our Florida statewide academic libraries'  consortia (FALSC) Library Assessment Standing Committee did some work comparing Tableau with Microsoft PowerBI Dashboards that you might find interesting. It can be found on the following page https://www.libraryassessment.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/308-Race-Strengthening-the-Library-Collective.pdf. What we did was compare Tableau with Microsoft PowerBI.  In the end, I think we preferred Tableau after analyzing several factors between the two platforms.  I hope this will be of use to you as you explore this.  (We have LibInsight Lite at FSU and dabbled using its dashboards earlier on, but the Excel experts in the house found the platform to be limited.  It does depend on what software your campus supports.)

Hope this helps. If you have any questions, I included the coauthors in this message who could continue the conversation.

Best,

Kirsten

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From: 'James Stemper' via ARL ASSESS <arl-a...@arl.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 5, 2020 3:49 PM
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Subject: Re: [ARL-ASSESS] Re: Impression on LibInsight or Tableau