Matthew Reidsma

Work Notes

Updates from the GVSU Libraries’ Web Team.
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Data Entry Bounty

Some of you may know that I look at our feedback from a lot of different places. I have an hour blocked off on my calendar every Monday to read emails, chats, and tweets that came in to the library over the past week. I also read through all of the questions added to LibStats, and poke around on our Google Analytics and our own custom reporting tools for the dozen or so different web tools we have here at the Libraries.

While some of this stuff gets automatically recorded, a lot of it relies on our staff and students manually putting things into databases. I always try to acknowledge credit to folks who have found and reported problems that get fixed, but now I’m making it official.

Data Bounty

If you log some data as part of your job, and it helps me fix a problem, you’ll get a public shout-out and I’ll buy you a coffee. (Or a tea or a candy bar or whatever.)

You don’t even need to tell me about the problem! If you put something in LibStats, or help a patron on chat, I’ve already been notified. All you have to do is keep up the good work, except with extra caffeine.

The thing is, entering this data is not always rewarding. In fact, most of the folks I’ve talked to didn’t think anyone ever looked at the data. As someone who relies on that data to do my job, I want you to know how much I appreciate it. Hence the caffeiene.

User Data Storehouse

Inspired by how Mailchimp, the email marketing company, shared user research across several departments, Kristin and I have started a similar UX research database here at the GVSU Libraries. We’re putting in data about usage, questions, problems, interviews, usability tests, etc. that we find useful, and that other folks might find useful, too. It has a great search function, so it’s easy to find stuff. Let me know if you’d like to have access, and whether you’d like to add some data or your own!

In other news

We’ve been working this week on a couple of projects that we hope to start sharing with you soon:

  • Online group study room reservtaion (working with IT to improve the online tool)
  • Redesign of the hours page. This page is confusing during breaks and is getting heavy traffic, and almost all from phones!

Stay tuned for more info next week.