Dear Nathan,
We have implemented Google Analytics on our finding aids. The code
itself is easy enough to add to a page. We added it to our Footer
include file, so it shows up on every finding aid and auxiliary page
within the http://www.lib.umd.edu/archivesum site.

I check it periodically, however, have not had the time to really
analyze the findings. All I do is occasionally look and see what people
are searching on and what our most popular finding aids are in terms of
number of hits. I have three years worth of data, but so far, have done
nothing with it. I initially set it up because I saw a great
presentation about it by Chris Prom at SAA a few years ago. I was all
fired up and ready to start working on it, but by the time I had
collected enough data, I lost the fire...

I would be curious to hear if people use specific aspects of Google
Analytics, and what they think the information really tells us. I also
have not set up any "Goals" because I never had time to sit down and
figure out exactly how they all work (I sort of feel like I need to take
a statistics class before embarking).

I keep trying to find a graduate student who would be willing to take my
data and make some sense out of it!
Jennie

p.s. A quick look tells me that in the last month, 58% of visitors to
our finding aids website came via Google... but what does it MEAN?


~*~
Jennie Levine Knies
Manager, Digital Collections
2216 Hornbake Library
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
(301)314-2558 TEL (301)314-2709 FAX
[log in to unmask] E-MAIL
http://www.lib.umd.edu/digital

Nathan Tallman wrote, On 6/22/2010 2:01 PM:
> Happy Tuesday Everyone,
>
> Just wondering if anyone has tried using Google Analytics with their
> finding aids. I was thinking it would be easy enough to insert the
> necessary code in the stylesheet template and then you'd would be able
> to get some good data on finding aid use, as well as user
> browser/network/hardware capabilities.
>
> When I started my current position, I implemented Analytics on several
> pages of our website. Our public finding aids are all HTML at the
> moment and I didn't want to hand edit each individual document, so chose
> not to implement Analytics in finding aids for the time being. We've
> recently started an EAD project thought and this idea came back to me.
>
> If you have implemented Google Analytics for your finding aids, I'd love
> to hear about it!
>
> Best,
> Nathan
>