Statistics are a powerful tool you can use to inform decisions concerning your library. With Alexandria statistics, you can see copy and title usage, which patrons do or don't use the library, popular titles and book types, which days and times your library is most active, and more. This information empowers you to make decisions about ordering new books, weeding, and library activities. You can even use statistics to justify costs to boards and administrators.

In Alexandria, there are two kinds of usage statistics: Monthly Usage and Circulation. To get the most out of these statistics, you'll need to set up your policies and Statistics Groups correctly.

General Best Practices

• Set up your policies at the beginning of the year.

• Keep all patron and item records throughout the year if Monthly Usage data is important. Removing them mid-year will mess with your statistics. Once you get your reports at the end of the year, then you can remove them!

• Only change a policy's Statistics Group if you know what you are doing and have a good reason for doing it.

Monthly Usage Statistics

For the three main record types (patrons, titles, and copies), Alexandria keeps record-specific monthly usage counts for each year. These are incremented whenever a checkout occurs; there are no monthly usage counts for holds, reservations, or other circulation events.

For example, if Darla Anderson checks out Copy 1000 of The Hunger Games in June 2020, then the June counter in the 2020 record for each of those records is incremented by one.

Advantages

With these statistics, it’s possible to see monthly, yearly, or lifetime usage for each of these records. Additionally, when running reports, you can select by groups of similar records to obtain monthly, yearly, or lifetime totals for that particular group (e.g. grade, homeroom, title, author, call number, genre, etc).

These statistics are useful in answering basic checkout usage questions and identifying the total number of checkouts for a record or group of similar records. See the Statistics section of this page for examples of specific questions these can answer.

It's important to note that Monthly Usage statistics don’t record the time of day the checkout occurred or the interactions between records. Continuing with the example above, we know that Darla Anderson, The Hunger Games, and Copy 1000 were all “used” once. But we don’t know it was Darla who used Copy 1000 of The Hunger Games between 10 and 11 AM. If you want information on these interactions, it’s best to use Circulation statistics instead!

Uses

Here are some examples of information you can get from Monthly Usage statistics:

Darla Anderson has checked out 37 items this year.

Looks like she won the reading contest! 

Copy 1000 has been used 137 times and is getting old.

Does it need to be repaired?

Is it time to order a replacement?

Patrons in 4th grade (grade selection) checked out 476 items in June. 

The Lightning Thief is a very popular title; it has been checked out more than any other book in your collection.

Do you need to order more copies?

The items on the Teacher Resources shelf (shelving selection) have been checked out only 7 times, and all were in January.

Does this shelf need to be in a more visible area?

Do teachers need to be reminded of these?

Removing Statistics

Monthly Usage statistics reflect records currently in Alexandria, so deleting records will delete associated statistics. This is why it’s important to not delete patrons, titles, or copies until you have the statistics you need. Usually you’ll run reports to get this information at the end of the school year.

Reporting

Here are some Alexandria reports that use Monthly Usage statistics:

Circulation Statistics

Alexandria keeps a Circulation statistic record for each unique combination of date, hour, patron policy, item policy, patron site, and copy site . These are incremented for checkouts, check-ins, renewals, holds placed, and reservations placed.

For example, it’s recorded if a patron with the High School policy at Washington High School checked out an item with a Biography policy from Jefferson Middle School on a Monday between 10 and 11 AM.

Advantages

Circulation statistics allow you to analyze library usage patterns and interactions between various types of records.

For example, circulation statistics could show that middle schoolers check out more biographies than other groups or that 10:00–11:00 AM is the busiest time of day. Selections for Circulation statistic reports are done by date, site, or policy Statistic Group.

However, unlike Monthly Usage statistics, Circulation statistic records aren’t linked to individual records that contribute to them. If you’d like to see information on individual patron, title, and copy records, it’d be best to use Monthly Usage statistics!

Uses

Here are some examples of information you can get from Circulation statistics:

• 11:00 AM is the busiest hour of the day.
• Mondays are the busiest day of the week.
• Patrons in 4th grade check out more fiction than biographies.
• Patrons in 8th grade use the library more than the 9th graders do.
• The most popular non-fiction area for those in 11th grade at your site is the 500's.
• Patrons in 12th grade never check out anything in the 200's.
• Jefferson Elementary School borrows the most from others in the district.

Use this information to plan library events and staff schedules. You can also determine if certain books need to be moved or promoted. Maybe a certain patron group needs more opportunities to come to the library, or maybe you need to order more science fiction novels for ninth graders.

Removing Statistics

Circulation statistics exist forever unless they’re intentionally removed through the Remove Circulation Statistics utility. This action isn't normally required and should only be done if you know these statistics are no longer useful for your reporting. Removing patron, title, or copy records doesn’t affect existing and historical Circulation statistic data.

Also, Alexandria records policy-based statistics from the time that a patron or item is assigned to a policy and onward. Any statistics that were recorded in the past will reflect the policy that the patron or item was assigned to at the time.

Reporting

Here are some Alexandria reports that use Circulation statistics:

edit Why You Need Policies and add here; talk about Statistic Groups here?

Randy: When analyzing your collection, you will be looking closely at collection usage. Alexandria keeps usage statistics based on item and patron policies.
To ensure the most relevant statistics, use specific policies based on each grade and collection area—perhaps even as far as separate policies for the 000s, 100s, 200s, etc. (instead of just a general nonfiction policy). This will provide interesting and valuable information about your collection.

Newsletter: Hi Alexandria Users! Have you ever wanted to see detailed usage statistics for your patrons or items? This article will explain how to use policies to generate meaningful statistics reports. Policies in Alexandria serve two main purposes: to set up circulation rules for different types of patrons and items, and to organize different types of patrons and items into groups we can then use to generate statistics reports. For example, if you want to find granular usage statistics for your library, such as how many fiction, biography, and audiovisual items were checked out by 12th-graders on a monthly basis during the 2014-2015 school year, policy-based statistics are for you!

To use policies for statistical purposes, we’ll need to create a policy for each group of patrons or items that we want usage statistics for. For example, a school library may create a patron policy for each grade level. A public library may create patron policies based upon the city or neighborhood where the patrons live. Item policies may be set up for each Dewey Decimal class, item type, or section of the library where a particular item is located.

Because these policies don’t necessarily need to have different rules, we can quickly create policies for statistical purpose by adding new policies that default from another policy whose settings we want to use. That way when the new policy is added, the rules will already be set up.

When adding a new policy, set the policy name, then enter a descriptive short code. The short code is how the policy will be displayed on the statistics reports and can include up to 4 characters. The Statistics Group setting that appears when creating a new policy is used to combine multiple policies into a single statistics group. Most users should leave the Statistics Group setting as Current Policy. Any exceptions that were set up on the policies you used as defaults will still need to be set up again on new policies.

Once your policies have been created, you can quickly assign your patrons and items to the new policies by running Replace Information utilities. You can also assign new policies individually through the Patron Management and Item Management windows.

It is important to note that Alexandria records policy based statistics from the time that a patron or item is assigned to a policy and onward. Any statistics that were recorded in the past will reflect the policy that the patron or item was assigned to at the time. Once you have circulated under the policies you have set up, you can run Statistics reports based upon these policies. These reports are found by going to Tools > Reports > Statistics.

To generate the report for 12th-graders I used as an example, choose Usage by Patron-Item Policy as the Report Type. On the Selection tab, set the Format menu to By Month, then set the Sort By menu to Month. Set the Select By menu to Patron Statistics Group. Enter the name of the policy you assigned to your 12th grade patrons in the From and Through fields that appear to the right, or use the arrows that appear to next to the fields to select the policy from a list. Once you have selected your Patron Policy, click the Add Selection button and set the Select By menu to Date Range. Enter the date range of the school year in the fields that appear.

Running the report with these settings will show the circulation statistics for each item policy checked out by 12th-graders broken down by month, as well as the total number of checkouts by 12th-graders for each item type during the entire date range specified.

Statistics Groups

When setting up your policies, you assign each policy a Statistics Group. This determines under which group this policy’s Circulation statistics will be gathered. In most cases, a policy’s Statistics Group can be the exact same as the policy, which is the default (e.g. a patron policy of 8th Grade will have a Statistics Group of 8th Grade as well).

However, you can also use Statistics Groups to combine statistics for multiple policies. For example, you can have separate Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Equipment policies that all have the same Statistics Group: Standard. That way, the Circulation rules for all of those items would be different because of their policy, but all of their Circulation statistics would be collected under the Standard policy.

This should only be done if you have a clear reason for doing so and understand how they work.

Uses

Here are some cases in which you might want to have a Statistics Group that differs from the original policy.
Holiday books