[Web4lib] Question 16b on ARL Supplemental Statistics

[Laura B Cohen]

I've worried about this too, because it's been my job to compile this
number.

The ARL definition of a virtual visit is a visit from outside any
library building. I deal with this by determining the number of sessions
from within our library buildings' IP ranges and subtract these from the
total number of sessions as reported by Urchin.

This is getting increasingly complicated now that we've partnered with
our campus Information Technology unit to open an Information Commons in
one of our libraries. This has brought a new series of non-consecutive
IP ranges into our operations. All I can do is to keep on making an
honest effort to conform to the ARL definition.

What I actually *think* about this definition is another matter!

The definition of a visit is tricky, because there hasn't been an
industry-wide agreement on what this means, at least not that I know of.
Based on my observations, many Web analytics programs measure visits
based on a timeout factor which is usually set by default to 30 minutes.
I've been considering this to be the de facto industry standard in my
setup of Urchin (i.e., I keep the default) and in my reporting of
visits.

______________________________
Laura B. Cohen
Web Support Librarian
LI-140 University at Albany, SUNY
1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12222
Voice: 518-442-3492
Fax: 518-442-3088



Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:03:19 -0500
From: "K.G. Schneider" <kgs at bluehighways.com>
Subject: [Web4lib] Question 16b on ARL Supplemental Statistics
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Message-ID: <1168549399.21256.1168819417 at webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"

Ok, I sort of have a handle on the answer, but I am bemused by question
16b of the ARL Supplemental Statistics:

"Number of virtual visits to library's catalog." 

I am probably thinking too hard and should just plug in numbers as
requested and be done with it, but I am trying to understand a) as
opposed to what (is there a way to visit our catalog, other than
virtually?), b) what a "visit" is--no really, not just what they say
here or in COUNTER or NISO metrics, but what a visit really *is*, and c)
how many people think I am spending too much time worrying about this.

K.G. Schneider
kgs at bluehighways.com