counting internet usage

[Ernest Perez]

I agree with David R. Newman of Queens Univ, Belfast 

Gerry Rowland, State Library of Iowa wrote:
> 
> Internet use statistics are a high priority for libraries at the local,
> state and national levels.
> 
> Counting hits by local users against remote Internet servers has been a goal
> of the FSCS, the national public library statistics project, for several years.
> 
> The counts, we understand, are fairly easy to get off an in-house LAN server
> on a direct connection.  The problem had been getting a count of hits from
> an Internet service provider when the library had a dial up connection.
> 
> At today's meeting of the FSCS group, we learned that the command
> "about:global" in the Location: box of the Netscape browser returns a list
> of files downloaded and a count of total files.  I assume that Internet
> Explorer has a similar feature.
> 
> It would appear that a count of hits could be tallied over a period of days
> or weeks, then multiplied to give an annual figure to provide a count of hits.
> 
> Is this the way to generate Internet use statistics?  I think it just may be.
> 
> Gerry Rowland
> Chair, FSCS Technical committee