Introduction

[Elizabeth Joan Kelly]

Hi all,

I missed the DLF last year but I was really excited to read through the notes for the sessions related to digital library assessment. 

My institution belongs to our statewide consortium, the LOUISiana Digital Library. We use CONTENTdm and have mostly used the usage reports provided by CONTENTdm (Usage Summary, Item Types, and Webalizer Usage Reports) to asses how frequently our collections are being used. More recently we have also started using Google Analytics for additional information regarding how users are getting to our collections, what keywords they're using, how long they're staying on our site, etc. I have recently begun looking more at other usage measurements like Altmetrics and am also interested in measuring non-scholarly use of our digital collections. Finally, I am interested in setting benchmarks for my institution to quantify a successful digitized collection--how do we know when a digitized collection has been successful? How can we use that information to inform what else should (or shouldn't) be digitized? When do the costs of digitization (whether outsourced or in-house) outweigh the benefits of having our collections available online?

Elizabeth Kelly

Digital Initiatives Librarian

Loyola University New Orleans