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How do you make your Show Track?

How do I track simple library stats quickly?

  • I'm a librarian and general tech-assistance resource at a high school library. (So I also do password changes for school accounts, fix the copier, and put paper in the printer, besides reference questions and more involved projects.) The classic way to track what questions a librarian answers is with a piece of paper and hash marks. Due to our paper reduction desires (and my desire to not have a piece of paper taking up valuable desk space), I'd really like a way to track this via computer.We want to keep simple stats both so we can demonstrate what we're doing that isn't a big obvious project, but also so we can show if specific choices have a very high staff-time cost that keeps us from other things. (Like how they decided to handle student passwords this year.) What I'd really love is something that would let me click inside a box, and register it as a click, and tell me the running total (both for type of action, and total actions that day.) I'm hoping for something like http://www.joesgoals.com/, but with a little more space (because I'll have days where there are dozens of checks in a particular category.) What I'm looking for: - A web solution would be ideal, but a program on my computer would possibly work. (Windows XP system - webwise, we're running Firefox 2.) - All I care about is the number of times I've done that thing, not how long it takes. (i.e. "25 password changes, 20 requests for laptops, 3 reference questions, and 1 copier issue") - I may have 30-50 checks in a given item on some days - whatever method I use has to scale - Many tasks are very quick and at times we're very busy: I want to simplify tracking as much as I can. I'm worried about the potential for typos/errors if I track in Excel if I get interrupted. - I need to track 10-15 categories (password changes, computer requests, reference questions, putting paper in the copier, etc.) - A notes field would be good. - Some kind of daily/weekly summary would be ideal, but I can do that in Excel if needed. Is there anything out there like this? Or any other suggestions that make tracking quick and painless?

  • Answer:

    A real quick and dirty solution might be to create an online form via Google Docs. I created an example input http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pltEb3ZZnOcePnWMw8euINA with some of your potential actions. The results are automatically http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pltEb3ZZnOcePnWMw8euINAin a spreadsheet and you can create charts and summaries from there. This might not fit your specific needs, but it's an idea of how you might get started. Best of luck!

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This sounds like it could be a great project for students in your one of school's more advanced computer programming classes.

onshi

There's the hard way, I suppose: get someone to set up an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL database and web front end -- smart techie students in want of candy are in every school. I volunteered at my high school library; had I known SQL at the time I woulda helped. Way back in the day, ClarisWorks (now AppleWorks, now defunct) used to have a reasonable self-contained database system that didn't require much effort.

spamguy

Heh, my job is totally based off SQL, so I'm tempted to use it as a solution for everything. Using SQL for your situation is like a flamethrower to kill a fly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Access is the next step down, and part of Microsoft Office, which your school better darn have somewhere. As long as this system is limited to a few computers and low traffic (i.e., you don't plan to run a web server off these stats), Access would be much wiser.

spamguy

At my library we have these clicky wheel things that keep a running tally of how many times you've clicked - one for directional queries, one for short ref, and one for long ref. I have no idea where they came from, but it's pretty simple to just read the total off at the end of the day and note that down.

nicolas léonard sadi carnot

Can't you use a wiki as some sort of "digital paper". I'm thinking something like http://www.tiddlywiki.com/.

unexpected

Google Docs has a very simple "New Form" function. Create a question saying "What task did you complete?" and have it as your required question, you can have another question that is a text box for a comment if you need it. It outputs to an excel, but will avoid the problem of typos or so on.

Iteki

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pjgZWeniWncAR2UM5ck7BUg of the google solution. Took about two minutes to set up, and each entry is timestamped automatically in the excel.

Iteki

I'm going to have to second onshi. Most helpdesk people log insane amounts of information, and are based around opening tickets with lots of info in them. This really doesn't fit what you're looking for, which is something insanely easy-to-use. And really, I can't think of any applications that are based around this functionality. You could maybe go for a "voting" interface, but they're not going to have a "Notes" field ("Note: I really couldn't make up my mind on this one, but I ended up voting for Obama..."). And they're probably going to make it so you can't just sit there and press buttons repeatedly ("Note: I really liked Obama, so I kept pressing the button to vote for him until my finger got tired...") But it'd be a fairly easy task for a high school CS student to write. (And besides, it seems like e-voting systems are notorious for not even counting right?) I would recommend, though, that you have a few more buttons, so you can track "Adding paper to Printer 3," or "Changing toner in Printer 2," which would also allow you to track resource usage. And you might consider adding keyboard shortcuts, so you just press "F4" instead of fumbling for the mouse to click a button when you're busy. Would this be on a 'dedicated' computer, though? I'm worried that your coworker might be busy checking out books, meaning you couldn't log things as they happened.

fogster

Well hell, preview woulda been my friend if I had used it.

Iteki

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