Using Event Tracking to Enhance Library Web Interfaces

Abstract

Event tracking allows for more fine-grained tracking of clicks, searches, and other user-initiated actions than is available through typical web analytics like page view and visit statistics. This session will describe using Google Analytics to track events across a library website, catalog, and discovery system. While traditional web analytics remain valuable, they fail to capture a full picture of how users interact with our online services, particularly with now common in-page features such as tabs and expanding/collapsing menus. This session will describe how library staff at the University of Kansas have used event tracking to monitor use of specific features of the Libraries homepage, our catalog, a databases A-Z list, and discovery system; discuss the technical skills necessary to implement event tracking; and demonstrate examples of the events we track. In particular I will cover the challenges of implementing event tracking on external sites over which we have limited control, like our hosted discovery system, and share how we've used the data from event tracking inform our efforts to assess and improve our online library services.