Usage Statistics for Summon

We just got access to the new analytics tool from Summon. There is a lot there to process, but here are some early points of interest.

We introduced Summon in September 2009, but only as a beta. It became the top search box on our website in January 2010. This images show visits and searches for the first partial academic year, September 2009 through May 2010.

You can see the jump when we made it the top box. We ended that year with a total of 8,998 visits and 45,759 searches, which is about 8% of total searches on library databases. Users did on average 5 searches every time they visited Summon.

 Of those 8,998 visits, only 65% came from Winter Park. The rest came from elsewhere in the US, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

We can also see what domains users are coming from. Only about 60% of users are coming from rollins.edu.

When we compare visits and searches between January 2010 and January 2011. We see a rise from 774 visits and 4,220 searches in January 2010 to 1,282 visits and 5,709 in January 2011. A 65% increase in visits and 35% increase in searches. That is good news and interesting as well. The average number of searches per visit has dropped from 5.4 to 4.4. Does than mean Summon is getting better at delivering the right results or that users are leaving earlier unsatisfied. Isn't this always the way with data the more you get the more questions you have!