"As space"

We are beginning work on some future space plans in our largest library on campus. Based on all of the data we collected for our Student Success projects, the new work group wanted to know about what we could pull out to inform the space project. Logical, right?

But disappointing because the answer is not much. When setting up the data collection for our original project we wanted to know who was "using the libraries" in one or more than one of the ways we outlined. But we didn't collect the "what" that was being used (e.g. collected that x student checked out a book but not which book; gathered that x student used a computer in one of the libraries but not which library, etc.). This was a deliberate and thoughtful decision for our initial project to protect user privacy.

Yet we are now unable to go back to the data and try to find out more about the "what." We are now trying a little of this. For our space project we have flipped this--gather data tied to a specific place but not x student. So we can get a snapshot (e.g. College) but not to the depth of our earlier work. Below is a quick chart of use of the library computers in 2012-2013 in the largest library on our campus and the associated colleges.