Data! We gotcher data!

Just spent an exciting week analyzing the data that had come in from the student survey I’d been working on, which closed 5/29. I took that data and cut it up this way and that, coding here, graphing there, and smushing it all into a Powerpoint, which I then presented to library management and then library staff at large last Thursday.

“Well, you see…”

I tried to make it visually interesting to counter it being full to the gills of data to take in; here is a sample slide (Microsoft Office clip art photo):

While presenting, I realized I should’ve maneuvered some data in a way I hadn’t – I cut the responses up by which library the student used the most, #1, #2, or both, but only started doing that some ways into the questions. As doing almost all the data that way would’ve revealed some interesting stuff, I knew I had to go back and fix it (or I’d drive myself nuts thinking about it). Now the amended presentation, raw data, and my analysis are available for all staff to view and use as they see fit.

Every time I use Excel in some depth I learn and relearn new tricks. That program is deceptively massive.

The effects of the survey: One commenter wanted more info about public libraries in NYC, so I put together a quick info sheet about the three library systems (NYPL, BPL, QL) and how students could get cards at all three, which they can do because they are in-state students, and it is now in our ref desk spindle. BAM! Progress.

Where I’m going, where I’ve been

A presentation I did for Online Database Searching and Services (a name I hear is changing, maybe?) on how to search Twitter gained more than 500 views the first week it was up, and thought it has not kept up that pace, now at two weeks out it’s up in the 630s, which is nice.   If you make it (simple, clear, and useful), they will come.  The final project for that class was to help a patron with a research need, and my patron/friend needed help with a math issue.  I am now more familiar with two math databases I had never used before, MathSciNet (handy free tools here) and Zentrallblatt MATH.

I’ve been working on a website for Digital Humanities, the digitized diary of a Brooklyn-dwelling ancestor, over at brooklyndiary1864.wordpress.com.  The HTML is a slog but WordPress makes it fairly easy to noodle around, and I think it’ll look really nice when it’s done, which will be by May 7.  Well, “done” in a relative sense, digital humanities projects are never really finished, it seems.

And finally, I recently turned in a paper for Information Policy on copyright and authorship, and have a final short presentation to do for Wed, which will be on Disney and copyright.  Copyright has become a big interest of mine this semester, building on the spark of intrigue from a class I audited at the GC, “The Meaning of Media” with David Greetham, who perhaps coincidentally is a contributor in one of the textbooks in Digital Humanities.  Or perhaps not coincidentally, as the nodes of connection there are me and book/media studies.

This summer, I’ll be continuing my work as a GA at Pratt’s Brooklyn campus library, and also working as a GA for Dr. Lopatovska, with whom I took Online DB Searching and will be taking Research Methods in the fall.  I’ll be helping her with the project around which the Research Methods class will be focused, so I’m really looking forward to being so deeply involved.