Category: Horizon/HIP

A few people have emailed me for more information about how to log clicks on the external 856 links in HIP, so here’s how to do it!
Requirements:

• a web server on which you can run a script (e.g. Perl or PHP)
• HIP 2 or 3

The 856 links in HIP are built from the MARC map in Horizon, so the first step is tweak it so that it prepends the URL of a logging script in front of the actual 856 URL.  Here’s what our 856 MARC $u map looks like (split across several lines for readability):

<a class="smallAnchor"
    href="https://library.hud.ac.uk/cgi-bin/cataloguelink.pl?$_">
    {<img src="$9"{ alt="$y"}>|$z|$y|$_}
    </a>

To view the MARC map without line breaks (i.e. as you’d enter it into Horizon), click here.
Please remember to make a note of the original 856 MARC map value – you might need it!
The https://library.hud.ac.uk/cgi-bin/cataloguelink.pl bit will need to be changed to the location and name of your logging script.
My first version of the logging script simply logged the URL and the time, as I couldn’t figure out a way of capturing more useful info (such as the bib number or book title).
So, I brewed myself an extra strong coffee and sneaked up on the problem from a different angle!
Continue reading “logging yer 856’s!”

A couple of weeks ago I added logging to five of our OPAC tweaks to see if they were being used, and also which is the most popular.  We’re not in a particularly busy period at the University, so I would expect usage to be higher during peak periods.  Also, I only logged clicks coming from our 46 dedicated catalogue PCs and I’ve excluded stats from the weekends.
So, here is the top five countdown (cue suitable “Top of the Pops” music — I’ll plump for Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love“):
Number 5 – Other Editions
On average, we got 6 clicks per weekday on the “other editions” links.
Number 4 – Keyword Suggestions
On average, we got 14 clicks per weekday on the “serendipity” suggestions.
Number 3 – Similar Subjects
On average, we got 36 clicks on the “items with similar subjects” suggestions.  Interestingly, the number of clicks has risen consistently throughout the 2 week period — we’ve not advertised any of these features, so people are using them when they stumble across them.
Number 2 – Also Borrowed
On average, we got 154 clicks on the “people who borrowed this, also borrowed” suggestions per day.  This ranged from a minimum of 105 to a maximum of 199 clicks on any single weekday.
Number 1 – Spelling Suggestions
On average, we got 222 clicks on the “did you mean?” spelling suggestions per day.  This ranged from a minimum of 155 to a maximum of 279 clicks on any single weekday.
Continue reading “If you build it, will they come?”