Information Services Data Collection Process
- Kat King
- Kat King
Information services are the interpersonal expertise based services – like reference inquires, research consultations, and instruction – where we support patrons' research, teaching, or learning.
We collect data about our information services for a few reasons. First is to meet our external reporting obligations which include the aggregated number of information service interactions and patrons. This requirement forms the scaffolding for us to collect more robust data about our services to support our internal communication, planning, and assessment.
All library employees who meet with patrons outside a service point, or answer reference questions outside LibAnswers should record those interactions in this system.
Contents of this page
Accessing the system for the first time
To enter and view data you will need a CAS/NetID Airtable account, and we will need to manually give that account access to the information services data interface.
Making an account
Go to http://Airtable.com/login and click “Sign-In with Single Sign On”
Enter your Princeton NetID Email
Authenticate with Princeton CAS
Requesting Access
If the link to the interface doesn’t work after you make an account, please send an email to lib-aux@princeton.edu requesting access. Please include your netID in the email.
Video instructions for making an Airtable account
Add or Update Records
This is the landing page for entering and updating data about your information services sessions. The page is divided into sections for each type of action you can take, with links to the appropriate forms.
Add a new information service
This link is to the form for entering data about consultations, course instruction, workshops, or tours. The fields on this form are dynamic, so that only relevant fields will show. Please fill out as many fields as you can, to enable more meaningful analysis of this data.
Personal Fields
The notes and time/effort fields are for your personal use. They are not a part of the data analyzed by AUX. Both fields will be visible in your view of the records, and your personal dashboards will show basic summary statistics for the time/effort field.
Read more about types of Information services and the specific data fields for each
Adding attendance to an existing record
If you enter data about a course instruction, workshop, or tour before the session happens (for example, at the time you schedule it) you can use this form to add the number of attendees once the session is complete. You will need the record number of the entry you want to update.
Deleting a record
If you need to delete a record, use this form. You will need the record number of the entry you want to update. This is a manual process, so may take a few days to update.
Virtual Reference
We are tracking virtual reference interactions weekly. Use this form to enter the number of virtual reference interactions you had in your individual or team email for each patron type at least once a week. If you want to enter data more frequently you can, but your dashboards will still show the data aggregated by week. Do not record interactions that took place in LibAnswers.
Virtual Reference Reminders
You can turn reminder emails on or off. If you have them turned on, the system will send a weekly reminder email with a link to the virtual reference form. These emails will come from “Airtable Automations” with the subject line “Reminder to record Virtual Reference interactions.”
Your Information Services Data
This section has pages that show information about the data you have entered about your information services. There are pages that will show some summarizing graphs and individual records for specific types of service, and a page for searching and downloading your data. These sorts of personal data views are new, so we welcome your feedback about what is useful and what might be missing.
Other Sessions
If others have entered data about an information service and added you in the “Other Presenter” field, those sessions will show up here. These sessions are not included in the totals in your personal dashboards.