Sutherland Shire Libraries Staff News

In October we paid for the following notice to be included with the delivery of rates notices across the Shire. 63,000 odd flyers were delivered to ratepayers, starting on 19 October 2018.  Following is an initial look at the impact of this campaign on the usage of Kanopy.

THE CAMPAIGN FLYER

Flyer advertising Kanopy distributed with SSC Rates Notices

THE WEBSITE

The link on the flyer directed people to the Kanopy page on the library website. The following chart shows the daily page views of the Kanopy page, with the campaign delivery date marked.

Pageviews on the Kanopy page of the library web site

So we can see that the number of views definitely increases dramatically but, while the increase is obviously a result of the campaign, the chart above includes all site visits, not just those directly related to the campaign. The next chart shows the number of visitors to the site. This shows the number of people directly connected to the rates notice campaign (remember, one person can be responsible for multiple page views).

Users who visited the website as a direct result of the campaign

The light-blue line shows the number or New Users, or people that have not visited our website before, at least for some time (Note that the scale for New Users is on the right and the scale for all users is on the left). The number of new users per day is slightly less than the all users but the pattern of the charts is similar, suggesting that most of the campaign traffic is from people who are not already regular users of our stuff.

The charts above show that the campaign generated traffic to the site but they don’t tell us whether anyone followed through and actually used Kanopy. Over the period from 1 October to 30 November shown in these charts, the site analytics shows that there were 379 sessions initiated as a result of the campaign. Of these sessions there were 219 clicks through to the Kanopy collection, the first step in actually viewing a video.

KANOPY USAGE

For more detail about the number of videos played we need to look at the analytics provided by Kanopy. This chart shows the number of page views, sessions and video plays on the Sutherland Kanopy website. The key indicator here is the yellow line – the number of Plays. The increase in sessions and page views is obvious but we need to look at how much that interest translates into actual use – watching videos. Although it is not as pronounced, the increase in plays can be seen. Most importantly, however, is the lasting impact of the campaign. If we were to calculate the area under the yellow line before and after the delivery date it shows that the total usage of Kanopy has increased and there is a lasting effect upon usage as a result of the campaign.

Kanopy Analytics

The increase is a little more visible when looking at the total number of minutes played, shown below by the white line.

Daily minutes played on Kanopy by Sutherland users

Without boring you with the detailed data tables, I can provide 2 key numbers that demonstrate the impact of the campaign on Kanopy usage.

Prior to the campaign, there was an average of 23 videos played per day (all users). This number increased by half again as a result of the campaign to 36 per day. When it comes to minutes played, the impact is larger with the daily average increasing from 679 minutes per day prior to the campaign to 1208 minutes post campaign.

MEMBERSHIP

The final question that I have about the campaign is how many new library members were generated as a result of this campaign? This question is much harder to answer because there is no way to link new users to the campaign itself.

There is also no way to track how many people signed up to Kanopy each day - there is just a total number of Kanopy users. The closest I can get is to look at all the library members who are also signed up to Kanopy and check the date that they signed up as a library member.

The chart below shows how many people joined the library during October and November, who are also Kanopy users.  Just let that sink in for a second... the chart does not include any new members who have not signed up for Kanopy. Neither does it include any Kanopy users that signed up to the library before October 2018.

Kanopy users who joined the library during the campaign

What this chart shows is that, of all the users who joined the library during Oct/Nov, only a handful subsequently sign up for Kanopy as well. Prior to the campaign there was less than 1 per day.  Around the time of the flyer delivery there was a little spike where 4 people joined the library and Kanopy and small bump over the next couple of days.  All up, however, there were 5 in the 20 days before the campaign and 21 in the 40 days after. We cannot say for sure that these people joined the library directly in response to the campaign but I think it's safe to say that maybe the campaign attracted approximately 10 new members.

In some ways, it's a blessing that there was a relatively small impact on membership. We would struggle to absorb a larger number of new members who wanted to use Kanopy. The way our Kanopy subscription works is that we prepay for a set number of video plays for the year.  We then allocate monthly limits per patron to try and manage the demand so that our budget stretches to the end of the financial year. If we have a sharp increase in usage we could easily burn through our prepaid plays and be faced with trying to either find extra money to buy more credits or cut off patron access to Kanopy until the new financial year. Neither scenario is particularly appealing.  And as it turns out, it looks like we will have to redirect some funds from elsewhere this financial year to keep Kanopy available at 10 plays per month. We will have to dedicate increased funding to Kanopy in 2019/20 to account for the continued growth in users.

Martin

Susan Benton, President and CEO, Urban Libraries Council (USA and Canada) was the keynote speaker at the first day of the SWITCH conference and she spoke about a very effective collaboration between libraries and schools.

The logical partner for public schools is public libraries but schools don't see libraries as being in the education game. However during Barack Obama's presidency the White House contacted libraries and schools to collaborate on the ConnectED initiative which called upon library directors to work with their school leaders, school librarians, and city officials to provide wider access to the learning resources and books of America’s libraries. This was formalised in memorandums of understanding. This resulted in a 66% increase in student use/membership of public libraries.

Libraries are now hiring educators rather than librarians. They are reorganising libraries for education - eg. the Summer Reading Program has been fine-tuned to become the Summer Learning Program.

Susan also spoke about leadership in libraries and highlighted the following tips:

• think differently
• take risks
• bring councillors on the journey
• challenge norms and ask why?
• ask how can I turn your no into a yes?
• be a strong communicator
• be the squeaky wheel
• run a community-led library.

I was lucky enough to attend the Reachout Symposium and SWITCH Conference last week at Coffs Harbour and I thought I'd summarise some of the key messages in a series of blog posts over the next couple of days or weeks.

The first talk I heard was by Kevin Hennah who had a lot of very relevant tips about library design for both static and pop-up libraries.

His initial point about library design I think is also relevant to marketing and event planning - We are like dogs chasing our when we keep looking at other libraries, we need to look outside the library industry!

1.  Create prescence

• big and bold
• have a point of difference
• find an edgy graphic designer
• change graphics frequently
• brand it
• fresh and glossy
• floor decals on concrete that stick to asphalt, brick, concrete and tiles

2.  Provoke thought with a key selling point

• say something thought-provoking.  eg.  If you truly want to avoid wrinkles NEVER SMILE AGAIN!
• change is inevitable, maintaining relevance is a matter of choice
• be anything but ordinary

Early Language and Literacy in N.S.W. Public Libraries: Framework for developing and evaluating early literacy sessions.-Launch event

Jo, Susan F, Kirsten and I went to the launch of the above named framework at the State Library at the beginning of November. It was a lovely day and a proud one for Sutherland Library and the children's team as this team was an integral part of the research that lead to the creation of that framework. Congratulations to the children's team who were videoed and interviewed for this project.

I kept copious notes which I will have saved in Objective (Community Services-Library-Children's Programs-Early Literacy-Early language and literacy in NSW public libraries -framework - launch)

The framework looks at 

• The principles that support early learning, language and literacy, 
• Early literacy domains-what they are and why they are important
• How children's books support learning to read
• Choosing books
• Reading with babies and toddlers
• Encouraging participation in library group sessions
• The Library Space
• How using the space builds community 
• Music
• Craft
• Future directions

A few things that stood out for me were

• We are providing an excellent quality product for our patrons
• Without being 100% aware of it we are providing a wide variety of early literacy skills which are essential to pre-reading
• We are providing an entry point for early language and literacy skill development for children who might not have access to pre-school and other programs
• We are lucky to have a team of committed children's assistants who work really hard in the branches to provide these programs
• We have the opportunity to refine our practice to make it more explicit and focused and therefore of greater benefit to the children.