Amy Vecchione

Using Geolocation Apps for Academic Library Outreach and Instruction

This article discusses the uses, experiments, and merits of geolocation applications for academic library outreach and instruction. SCVNGR is a game-based geolocation application. Users earn points or gain rewards by completing challenges and treks. Builders design challenges with text-based answers, quick response codes, or photo responses. Librarians at Boise State University and Oregon State University have built treks and challenges using SCVNGR for orientations and instruction. They have found SCVNGR a better environment than Foursquare to engage students with the library. SCVNGR is a convenient tool to use to get started with geolocation and gaming in library instruction; however, comparable tools are available.

Tracking User Behavior with Google Analytics Events on an Academic Library Website

ABSTRACT The primary purpose of an academic library Web site is to serve as a portal to library-acquired content. Navigational design of a library Web site affects the users ability to find and access content. At Albertsons Library, the goal of the navigational design of the Web site is to mimic user behavior on the Web site to help them access information and articles from over 300 different library vendors. Coordinating with different vendors makes tracking the navigational flow of user behavior difficult with the tool Google Analytics. Using the events feature in Google Analytics, the team responsible for Web design was able to track user flow, and was able to quantify how many users were actual “drop-offs” versus those that were clicks into library resources. Decisions made after acquiring these data resulted in a Web site with a 10 percent or less bounce rate, and decreased the number of clicks required for users accessing the librarys content.