Keeping a Gimlet Eye on
Reference Data
Ken Simon
Reference and Instruction Technologies Librarian
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, California
Twitter: @ksimon Email: kenneth.simon@lmu.edu
READ scale
Dr. Bella Karr Gerlich
http://readscale.org/
Librarian Training
• Where is “The Sun Also Rises?” Directional or Reference?
• It depends!
• How do I request a book from storage? Policy or Reference?
• It depends!
• How do I access a database from off-campus? Technical or policy?
• [Well, you get it by now.]
• Difficulty of non-reference questions on the READ scale:
• Policy = always 2
• Directional = usually 1
• Referrals: how long you spend, not difficulty of question
Student Training and Evaluation
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Blackboard training module + exercises
Guides to Gimlet, READ Scale, tagging
Easy evaluation of students: search by initials
Flag or email questions for follow-up
Gimlet LibGuide for LMU
http://libguides.lmu.edu/gimlet
DATA DUMP
2 years = 29,000 records
It’s Not Social Tagging!
It’s Not Social Tagging!
It’s Not Social Tagging!
It’s Not Social Tagging!
It’s Not Social Tagging!
Crunch all you want…
• Excel: sort and filter by fixed fields
• Content analysis using Simple Concordance Program:
– Directional: led to signage improvements
– Technology: Fixes, training, State of Technology in
the Library report for campus I.T.
• Next up: coding the data
Coded Data
Reference Tags
Note: these tags differ from the ones used in Gimlet
1 = Catalog Use & Lookup
2 = Database Help & Use
3 = External Web page
4 = Internal Web page
5 = Reference Book (print)
6 = Referral
7 = Reserves
8 = Retrieval
9 = Other
99 = empty / unknown
Conclusions
• To assess and improve, you need data!
• It takes work to get the data into shape.
• You can’t escape subjectivity…
…but you can help to manage it.
• Experiment with tools for analysis:
– Excel, concordance software, codebook/SPSS
• Why?
– To better fulfill our mission
– Potential cost savings, better use of staff time
Credit where credit is due:
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Alexander Justice
Susan Gardner
Shannon Billimore
Courtney Hoffner
Jason Campos
Meg Gregory
Bonnie Rainey
Keeping a Gimlet Eye on
Reference Data
Ken Simon
Reference and Instruction Technologies Librarian
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, California
Twitter: @ksimon Email: kenneth.simon@lmu.edu