Abstract
Compared to vendor-provided data, Transaction Log Analysis (TLA) can provide unique benefits to a library in analyzing database usage. Meanwhile, it also requires librarians to have a broad knowledge of Information Technology in order to implement a TLA. This article will present an in-house database system developed at the University of Manitoba Libraries to analyze EZProxy’s Starting Point Uniform Resource Locator logs. The database visits that happened in the past two years have been imported into this system and are split into two categories, on-campus and off-campus visits. Unique statistical information from each category is also discussed.
Highlights
A database is “a structured set of data held in computer storage and typically accessed or manipulated by means of specialized software”(OED, 2019)
If the request is from an University of Manitoba (UofM) Internet Protocol (IP) address, which means the user is on campus, EZProxy will automatically grant access to the user
It will be very difficult for a library to investigate a model of the user accessing e-resources based on which custom service could be developed
Summary
A database is “a structured set of data held in computer storage and typically accessed or manipulated by means of specialized software”(OED, 2019). The target URL represents the specific e-resource that a user visited This database usage analysis is based on the EZProxy SPU logs as the target URLs are recorded each time a starting point URL is clicked (OCLC, 2019). The author designed a MySQL database and imported EZProxy’s SPU logs into it This database contains the University of Manitoba (UofM) campus Internet Protocol (IP) ranges, UofM Identity (ID) for faculty, staff and students, and all database records from the Libraries’ AZ Database list on LibGuide. The database analysis method described in this article allows the author to investigate both the usage of a particular database in the period and the off-campus information-seeking activities of a particular user group in the time frame
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