LibGuides by the numbers

It's that time of year -- and, no, I'm not talking about summer vacations or the heat index.  Instead, it's the end of the fiscal year that's on my mind -- and all of the stats, facts and figures that accompany it.

As I've mentioned before, Duke Libraries are among the many that subscribe to LibGuides -- in fact, we just renewed our annual license.  And one reason that no one here at Duke gave a second thought to renewing the service (aside from the fact that librarians, students and faculty alike find value in the application), is that we regularly track usage to ensure that students and researchers continue to make use of the courseguides and subject guides librarians create each semester.

Let's take a look at traffic to Duke's LibGuides between January and the end of May (roughly the spring semester)...

There were over 83,000 hits to all 426 of our published guides.  To help give this raw number some context, we saw nearly 150,000 hits to all guides in 2009, so we're well on our way to topping that number during this calendar year.

Librarians created 99 courseguides (the most guides created in one semester to date!), and these 99 guides received 25,388 total hits, an average of 256 hits per guide.  The department to receive the highest number of guides?  You guessed it -- Writing 20, with an impressive 32 LibGuides.

While every guide created has received traffic (in a previous semester, if not this one), there are a handful that are particularly popular.  We'll call them our LibGuides Top Five:

• History 190B.01: Chubby History with 1,800 views (this guide also earns the distinction of "Most clever name," awarded by yours truly) 
• Duke Libraries Kindles with 2,398 views
• PUBPOL 114 with 2,676 views (and that's just one section of PUBPOL 114 -- the other section also received over a thousand views)
• Images Collections at Duke with 4,977 views (fun fact:  The creator was asked by LibGuides staff to contribute his guide to "Best of LibGuides" -- kudos to you, Lee!)

And, a drumroll for our most popular guide of the semester...

• Middle East Studies with a whopping 5,198 views

Thanks to you, loyal LibGuiders, for your incredible efforts this past spring -- I have no doubt that you'll continue to deliver outstanding content to your students and departments, not to mention those outside of Duke who stumble upon these gems online.

Other questions about usage of LibGuides at Duke?  I'd love to hear from you.