8/17/2023 0 Comments Ncsu libraries reference tracker![]() While we designed and carried out these projects separately, the purpose of both projects was to better understand how students are using our library spaces and to use that knowledge to improve student experiences. It can be modified to examine entire libraries or selected spaces, specific time frames or long-term trends, and it can be used to gain an understanding of new or existing spaces. The methodology is flexible and can be customized to work at any institution. These projects represent only one aspect of user research that we’ve conducted in our libraries, but we consider this data collection to be a useful starting point for librarians interested in improving UX within their physical spaces. This article examines separate space use data collection projects conducted at our respective libraries: MacOdrum Library at Carleton University and Mary Idema Pew Library at Grand Valley State University. However, both web analytics and space use data provide an important baseline that can both support and drive other forms of user research. Just as it’s useful to conduct user research beyond web analytics (Casden & Davidson, 2013), improving the user experience within physical spaces will require more than space use data alone. In this way, space use data is similar to web analytics. ![]() Librarians can also use space use data as a baseline against which to measure the effects of changes made to physical space. This understanding can subsequently be used to improve user experience within an existing space or inform design decisions for new spaces. The data can be very detailed-specific seats occupied, conversation levels, tools or materials in use-or quite general, such as areas labeled “mostly full” or “half full.” Collecting space use data can be useful because it can answer very basic questions about how students use the physical library environment and prompt librarians to further explore why students do the things they do within our spaces. Space use data is simply information about how and where people are using library space. Librarians can better understand user behavior and subsequently improve user experience within physical library space by choosing to capture what we call space use data. Similar to web analytics, this baseline can be useful on its own or used in conjunction with other forms of user research. The two projects were designed and carried out independently but had the same purpose: to better understand how students were using library spaces so that we could improve student experiences. Collecting space use data provided a baseline understanding of user behavior in these spaces. This article examines projects at two academic libraries where space use data was collected multiple times per day for several months. AbstractĬollecting data about where people are and what they are doing is an easy entry point into exploring the UX of library space. This paper was refereed by Weave's peer reviewers.
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