Analytics reports made for resource sharing

NOTE: If you want to look at system wide CSU+ data reports must be run from the Network Zone which is accessed via a different link and set of credentials than your institutional Alma. If you do not have a user account set up in the NZ contact Brandon at the CO to set one up for you.

Most basic CSU+ lending and borrowing reports

The two "most basic" reports show overall CSU+ lending and borrowing numbers since the service went live on July 10, 2017.

The borrowing report is a count of the items borrowed by each institution sorted by where they borrowed the item from. The lending report counts the items lent by each institution sorted by who they lent the item to since go-live.

NOTE: Both reports should show generally the same number of transactions, plus or minus a few. You will notice some discrepancies as a result of how borrowing and lending requests are counted. Borrowing requests use the presence of “item arrival date” to count requests actually received by the borrower while lending requests use the presence of “item sent date” to count requests actually shipped by the lender.  Lending numbers are generally higher than borrowing numbers because of items that are still in transit and those cancelled by patrons that were shipped and not received.

CSU+ dashboard

Nikki DeMoville at CalPoly SLO has created an excellent dashboard of CSU+ statistics that gives a great overall snapshot of how our resource sharing system is functioning. Natalya Magazino at San Marcos and Meghann Weldon at Humboldt modified and added additional reports. The dashboard currently includes:

To open the dashboard log into the NZ and hover over the Analytics menu option. Under the Reports link you will see a link to "CSU+ Statistics Dashboard". 

Click on it and wait for the dashboard to load in analytics. It can take some time for each tab to load but the results are well worth it! Here's a fuzzy example of one of the tabs:

This is a continual work in progress. If there are any statistics you think would fit well into this dashboard send your feedback to the RSFC.

Filled and Unfilled requests - lending and borrowing

These reports show the total number of requests submitted, number of requests filled and unfilled in the past year. The results are sorted into two tables - one table shows the totals for each campus and the other shows the total number of borrowing requests submitted/filled/unfilled for each campus divided by month over the past year.

Find these report in the Network Zone: shared/California State University Network/CSU+ → CSU+ Filled and unfilled borrowing requests/CSU+ Filled and unfilled lending requests.

CSU+ use by user group

This report shows CSU+ request activity sorted by user group. The report asks the user to designate a borrower type and date range (though "all" can be selected as well). Results include the number of filled requests for various user groups normalized into 11 categories for the date range specified (or since CSU+ go-live on 7/10/17 if no dates are chosen).

Find this report in the Network Zone: shared/California State University Network/CSU+/CSU+ Stats by User Group - Normalized

Items returned by borrower but not received by lender

These reports identify items shipped from the borrowing library more than 7 days ago but have not been received by the lending library. These items may have been mis-shelved at the borrowing library, shelved without being checked in at the lending library or possibly lost in transit.

There are two reports:

• one to identify items for which your campus is the lender
• one for for which your campus is the borrower

These reports should be run and shelves checked for the items on the report on a regular basis, monthly if time allows.

Find these report in the Network Zone: shared/California State University Network/CSU+/Requests stuck in trasit, received, requested → report names start with ILL returned but not recd

Here's a video showing how to open the report: https://www.screencast.com/t/pDAZx56u (note: the report has been moved to another folder, nested in the CSU+ folder since this video was made but the idea is the same)

Click on Open and select your institution. Once you've opened the relevant report, export the list to excel to save the file to your computer or print it directly from the analytics screen:

Items shipped by lender but not received by borrower

This report identifies items shipped from the lending library to fill a request more than 7 days ago but have not been received by the borrowing library. The results include the borrowing institution, lending institution, title, request external identifier, date shipped, borrowing status and item arrival date (to confirm the item did not arrive). These items may have been mis-placed at the lending library, accidentally not received at the borrowing library or possibly lost in transit. If a shelf check at your library comes up empty send a general message to the partner library requesting a shelf check.

This report should be run and shelves checked for the items on the report on a regular basis, monthly if time allows.

Find these report in the Network Zone: shared/California State University Network/CSU+/Requests stuck in trasit, received, requested → In Transit Too Long - lender to borrower

Click on Open, export the list to excel to save the file to your computer or print it directly from the analytics screen.

Finding Lending Requests that need to be marked "Lost"

Open the analytics report "Lending Requests with due date more than 90 days ago". Either search for the title or navigate to Shared Folders/Community/Reports/Institutions/CalState/Resource Sharing.

This report shows lending requests filled by your library that have passed their due dates by at least 90 days and have not yet been marked lost.

Schedule this report on a regular interval and it can be emailed to you or whoever handles following up on these items. More information on scheduling analytics reports can be found in the Alma Online Help.

Take a look at the Lost CSU+ items page for more details about what to do with the "long lost" requests that are identified using this query.

Finding Borrowing Requests that need to be marked "Lost"

Open the analytics report "CSU+ borrowed items due back 90 days ago". Either search for the title or navigate to Shared Folders/Community/Reports/Institutions/CalState/Resource Sharing

This report shows active CSU+ loans with a loan due date of 90 days ago or more. If opened from your own institution’s Alma instance it will include patron information and title of the item so you can follow up appropriately as outlined below. If opened from the NZ the columns with patron information will be blank or contain  “-1”.

Schedule this report on a regular interval and it can be emailed to you or whoever handles following up on these items. More information on scheduling analytics reports can be found in the Alma Online Help.

Take a look at the Lost CSU+ items page for more details about what to do with the "long lost" requests that are identified using this query.

A note on how the 90 day time frame was chosen to identify "long overdue" and therefore lost materials

In April 2018 Mallory analyzed return rates of a 5 campus sample, looking at how many items were returned after their due dates and how many days after the due date the item was returned. The goal was to identify the time frame in which the most loans were returned that could also allow libraries the flexibility to replace items within the time frame of a semester should they choose to do so. The analysis included all user groups and all types of loans except item policies that indicated a checkout period of less than 1 week.

A 30 day overdue window was too short, showing that higher volume campuses still had more than 10% of items that were ultimately returned still on loan. Increasing the overdue period from 30 to 90 days essentially cuts the number of outstanding checkouts in half, bringing every campus down to single digit outstanding returns ranging from under 1% to 6%.