Give me the Gimlet! Using Qualitative and Quantitative Information to Improve Statistics Reporting of Reference Transactions at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Abstract

Reference transaction statistics give insight into the needs of library users and help libraries prove their value within their institution. Collecting this data has long been an important aspect of librarianship. Historically, most libraries use paper tally sheets where librarians indicated each question asked with a mark. While paper systems are easy to implement, they provide little information about the nature of questions asked by library users. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Edith Garland Dupré Library replaced their traditional paper recording method with web-based statistics tracker Gimlet in 2016. Gimlet data reports for reference transactions occurring at the library’s reference desk and those via instant message from June 2015 to June 2018 are presented and analyzed. In addition, a newly developed coding scheme was applied to transactions to ensure the accuracy of information. This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of this change, innovations in reporting reference transactions in the Reference and Research Services department, and topics for further study.