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This chapter uses the University of Huddersfield as an example of how technology has allowed libraries of all kinds to work more collaboratively and analyses to what extent these developments have been successful. It focuses on the broad approaches that are being used via innovative technology and rich media to both reach and understand our customers as well as how developments in the community (e.g. open data, social media, open publishing, repositories, shared services etc.) have enabled the sharing, use and re-use of information, data and objects.

Purpose\ud In February 2011 the University of Huddersfield along with 7 partners were awarded JISC funding through the Activity Data programme to investigate the hypothesis that:\ud \ud “There is a statistically significant correlation across a number of universities between library activity data and student attainment”\ud \ud The Library Impact Data Project aimed to analyse users’ actions with regards to library usage and then linking those to final degree award. By identifying a positive correlation in this data those subject areas or courses which exhibit high usage of library resources can be used as models of good practice.\ud \ud Design, methodology or approach\ud The overall approach of the project is to extract anonymised activity data from partners’ systems and analyse the findings. For each student who graduated in the sample years, the following data was required: final grade achieved; number of books borrowed; number of times e-resources were accessed; number of times each student entered the library and school or faculty. This data was then collated, normalised, and then analysed. In addition all partners were asked to hold a number of focus groups in order to secure qualitative data from students on library usage to provide a holistic picture of how students engage with library resources. \ud \ud Findings\ud This paper will report on the findings of the project which ran from February to July 2011. It will consider whether the hypothesis was proven for the three indicators of library usage.\ud \ud Research or practical limitations or implications\ud The main aim of the project was to support the hypothesis. The project acknowledges however, that the relationship between the two variables is not a causal relationship and there will be other factors which influence student attainment.\ud \ud Conclusions\ud The paper will discuss the implications of the results and suggest further work that could result from the projects findings.

In February 2011 the University of Huddersfield along with 7 partners; University of Bradford; De Montfort University; University of Exeter; University of Lincoln; Liverpool John Moores University; University of Salford and Teesside University successfully bid and were awarded JISC funding through the Activity Data programme to investigate the hypothesis that:\ud \ud \ud “There is a statistically significant correlation across a number of universities between library activity data and student attainment”\ud \ud \ud The Library Impact Data Project (LIDP), which was inspired by earlier work undertaken at Huddersfield (Goodall and Pattern, 2011, White and Stone, 2010), aimed to analyse users’ actions with regards to library usage and then linking those to final degree award. By identifying a positive correlation in this data those subject areas or courses which exhibit high usage of library resources can be used as models of good practice.

In 2010, the University of Huddersfield shared results from its analysis of anonymised library usage data [1]. Data was analysed for over 700 courses over four years - 2005/6 – 2008/9; this included the number of e-resources accessed, the number of book loans and the number of accesses to the University Library. This investigation suggested a strong correlation between library usage and degree results, and also significant underuse of expensive library resources at both School and course level. At the time, it was highlighted that the correlation between library usage and grade had not yet been significance-tested and that it was not known whether the Huddersfield findings were an anomaly or the norm [2]. As a result, a number of universities approached Huddersfield in order to benchmark against the data.\ud \ud In the light of the recent Comprehensive Public Spending Review and the Lord Browne’s Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance [3], it was thought that, if the Huddersfield experience was found to be of statistical significance across a broad range of universities, there was potential for the results to be used as a factor to enhance student attainment. In parallel, there is a continuing focus on the student experience and a desire that all students should achieve their full potential whilst studying at university. Results could also be used by libraries to target their resources more effectively where budgets are shrinking.\ud \ud In September 2010, the JISC released a call through the Activity Data programme [4] and in February 2011 the University of Huddersfield along with 7 partners: University of Bradford, De Montfort University, University of Exeter, University of Lincoln, Liverpool John Moores University, University of Salford and Teesside University were awarded JISC funding to prove the hypothesis that:\ud \ud ‘There is a statistically significant correlation across a number of universities between library activity data and student attainment’

Publishers, librarians, academics and students are likely to benefit from innovative work going on at the University of Huddersfield linking use of library resources with final degree result. Gazette talks to Deborah Goodall, Dave Pattern and Graham Stone at the university library about the research and why they are now keen to benchmark the data with other universities.

Presentation given at the Internet Librarian International Conference 2012, Olympia Conference Centre, London, UK.\ud \ud The presentation discusses how Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) were used to help develop MyReading, the reading list software used by the University of Huddersfield.

Presentation given at the Internet Librarian International Conference 2012, Olympia Conference Centre, London, UK.\ud \ud The presentation gives a summary of the Library Impact Data Project (LIDP).

Presentation given at the European Libraries Automation Group Conference 2013

The original Library Impact Data Project (LIDP) found a statistically significant relationship across a number of universities between library activity data (specifically the number of items borrowed and logins to e-resources in the library) and student attainment.\ud \ud Phase II of LIDP seeks to deepen our understanding of this relationship by investigating additional data such as gender, age, ethnicity, declared disability, retention, VLE and reading list use and engagement with in-house projects. This data will be used to identify predictors for student outcomes, with a particular focus on engagement with library services, in order to understand better how library activity relates to student attainment, including causal relationships.\ud \ud This paper will show some of the results from our quantitative data analysis:\ud \ud 1. Demographic factors and library use, examining whether there is a relationship between demographic variables and all measures of library use, and to see which factors carry the most weight in such a relationship.\ud \ud 2. Retention vs. non-retention, to see whether there is a relationship between patterns of library use (including increasing or decreasing intensity of use and time of use) and retention.\ud \ud 3. Value added, using UCAS points data (used in the UK to total up further education grades for application to universities) and library usage data to establish whether use of library services has resulted in higher than expected outcomes for students.\ud \ud 4. VLE use and outcome. Subject to data availability, we will test to see whether there is a relationship between VLE use and outcome.\ud \ud 5. MyReading and Lemon Tree. Although data will not be available in the lifetime of the project, we will discuss these new projects to encourage greater use of library resources and describe how we will test to see whether there is a relationship between demographic characteristics and engagement with these projects.\ud \ud 6. Predicting final grade. We will use demographic and library usage data to test whether you can predict a student’s final grade from available data.\ud \ud In addition the paper will discuss initial findings from three case studies of courses which exhibit non/low use of library resources. The qualitative data will improve our understanding of student behaviour, and help ensure library resources are allocated in the best way to meet student needs.

Presentation given at UKSG Conference 2013 in Bournemouth.

This informal presentation will look at the barriers to online access for library users. It will discuss the background of online access issues and why straightforward design is so important to today’s users. The session will include practical examples of how libraries, aggregators and publishers are creating barriers to use by platform design and authentication, in addition to some examples of best practice.

This panel will review how web-scale discovery is being applied by academic libraries and examine evidence of its impact. The session will feature librarian pioneers in deploying web-scale discovery sharing their experiences as well as qualitative and quantitative results. Included will be a readout on the immediate rise in its content usage and heightened its presence among students and faculty. The speakers will offer advice on how web-scale discovery can best be leveraged to help libraries increase their return on content investments and strengthen their library brand.

Librarians today can establish academic library value by linking library services and resources to the missions, goals, and needs of their institutions. Statistical correlations between student library interactions and established learning and retention measures offer one path to demonstrable library value. This panel reveals research results from three libraries that successfully followed this path, shares best practices for “doing” value research, and embraces the quest to both prove and improve the value of academic libraries.

Presented in the session entitled "3 Years of Innovation: How the Summon Service Meets User Expectations and Research Needs".\ud \ud Join us as we celebrate the 3 year anniversary of the Summon® discovery service with guest librarians demonstrating how the Summon service is meeting their users’ academic research needs. Matthew Reidsma, Web Librarian, Grand Valley State University and David Pattern, Library Systems Manager, University of Huddersfield, both early adopters of the Summon service, will share data from their exciting new research on how users at their respective universities are using the Summon service and the real impact discovery is having on increasing user satisfaction and usage of library resources. The Summon service is now used by more than 30% of ARL libraries and hundreds of the largest research institutions around the world. Come learn what’s making the Summon service the most rapidly adopted new discovery service.\ud \ud Find out about our ground-breaking Discipline Scoped Searching and custom search widgets which make it easy to integrate the Summon service with LibGuides, research guides, and other Web-environments. Plus we’ll showcase the latest wave of Summon service innovations.\ud \ud Speakers: David Pattern, University of Huddersfield; Matthew Reidsma, Grand Valley State University

Short presentation about the Library Impact Data Project and some speculation about the link between buying books and attainment. Presented at the Booksellers Association Academic, Professional and Specialist Booksellers Conference 2013.

Presentation on Huddersfield's use of activity data and an update on the Library Impact Data Project followed by a break out session discussing various scenarios

Presentation given during the "Taking the Library to the Learner" session at Internet Librarian International 2010.

A growing body of research from around the world has demonstrated that uptake of social media and web 2.0 tools and technologies is not yet embedded within the research community. One important reason for this is that researchers often feel bewildered by the array of technology available to them, and struggle to understand how it could support their professional activities. This poster reports on a recent project, undertaken jointly by the University of Huddersfield and the Research Information Network (RIN), to enable a group of researchers to engage more effectively with social media tools.\ud \ud ’25 Research Things’ is an innovative online learning programme which gives researchers a structured way to engage with selected web 2.0 tools. It is based upon a previous course run at Huddersfield for its library staff, which itself borrowed from ‘Learning 2.0’, developed by Helene Blowers at the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, USA. A number of web 2.0 tools are introduced each week and the ‘thingers’, ranging from 1st year PhD students to professors, are given specific tasks which encourage them to experiment. The first cohort ran from November 2010-January 2011, the second will run from January–March 2011.\ud \ud The course is run via a WordPress blog, all participants establish and maintain a blog of their own to report on their experiences with each tool. This approach helps to build a supportive community, with participants commenting on each others’ blogs. As a result, they not only receive peer support on the various tasks, but also begin to understand the benefits of being part of an active online social network.\ud \ud All ‘thingers’ complete a survey before and after the course. The preliminary results of these surveys, along with analysis of the blogs, suggest that researchers have found the course to be useful. For many, it has increased their confidence in using web 2.0 tools, and every participant has found at least one new tool which they will continue to use after completion of the course. Many have also commented on the engaging and stimulating nature of the course, suggesting that the interactivity and structured learning are welcomed by researchers.\ud \ud This poster will use data from both rounds of the programme to evaluate its success. It will consider the efficacy of the ’25 Research Things’ model as a way of engaging researchers with social media, and will suggest how others could experiment with the project in their own institutions.

Purpose. The current economic climate, the recent Comprehensive Public Spending Review and the Lord Browne’s Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance are all putting pressure on UK Universities to maximise use of their resources and ensure value for money. In parallel, there is a continuing focus on the student experience and a desire that all students should achieve their full potential whilst studying at University. \ud \ud \ud In 2009/10, data at the University of Huddersfield was analysed for over 700 courses over four years - 2005/6 – 2008/9. This investigation suggested a strong correlation between library usage and degree results, and also significant under usage of expensive library resources at both School and course level. Three indicators of library usage were used:\ud \ud Access to e-resources\ud \ud Book loans\ud \ud Access to the library\ud \ud It was then matched against the student record system (SITS:Vision) and anonymised. The correlation between library usage and final degree was particularly strong in relation to access to e-resources and book loans, and exists at School and course level. \ud \ud \ud It was highlighted that the correlation between library usage and grade had not yet been significance tested and that it was not known whether Huddersfield was an anomaly or the norm. To this extent other academic institutions were invited to benchmark against the findings. As a result a number of universities from across the HE sector expressed an interest in becoming partners in this project.\ud \ud \ud In February 2011 the University of Huddersfield along with 7 partners; University of Bradford; De Montfort University; University of Exeter; University of Lincoln; Liverpool John Moores University; University of Salford and Teesside University were awarded JISC funding through the Activity Data programme (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/activitydata.aspx) to prove the hypothesis that:\ud \ud \ud “There is a statistically significant correlation across a number of universities between library activity data and student attainment”\ud \ud \ud The Library Impact Data Project (http://library.hud.ac.uk/blogs/projects/lidp/) aims to analyse users’ actions with regards to library usage and then linking those to final degree award. By identifying a positive correlation in this data those subject areas or courses which exhibit high usage of library resources can be used as models of good practice.\ud \ud \ud Design, methodology or approach. The overall approach of the project is to extract anonymised activity data from partners’ systems and analyse the findings.\ud \ud \ud The required activity data will span at least one entire academic year (e.g. 2009/10), or multiple years if historic data is available. For each student who graduated in that year, the following data will be required:\ud \ud Final grade achieved\ud \ud Number of books borrowed\ud \ud Number of times e-resources were accessed , e.g. the number of times the student accessed e-resources through authentication such as Athens, Shibboleth, EZProzy or MetaLib (with the caveat that it is a crude but common measure of actual e-resource usage) \ud \ud Number of times each student entered the library, e.g. via a turnstile system that requires identity card access\ud \ud School/Faculty. At Huddersfield, differences in library usage behaviour have been noted between departments and it would be interesting to know if this was replicated across other institutions\ud \ud \ud With multiple years of data it would be possible to analyse library usage by students in each year of their course. This data will then be collated, normalised, and then analysed.\ud \ud \ud In addition all partners have been asked to hold a number of focus groups in order to secure qualitative data from students on library usage. This will complement the quantitative data and provide a more holistic picture of how students engage with library resources. Finally, analysis of National Student Survey data will be conducted at course level, with a view to finding a correlation between satisfaction levels, library activity data and student attainment.\ud \ud \ud Findings. This paper will report on the findings of the project which will run from February to July 2011. It will consider whether the hypothesis was proven for the three indicators of library usage.\ud \ud \ud Research or practical limitations or implications. The main aim of the project is to prove the hypothesis that there is a statistically significant correlation across a number of universities between library activity data and student attainment. The project acknowledges however, that the relationship between the two variables is not a causal relationship and there will be other factors which influence student attainment.\ud \ud \ud Conclusions.The project will be a success if the following measurable targets are achieved:\ud \ud Sufficient data is successfully captured from all partners\ud \ud Statistical significance is proved for all data\ud \ud The hypothesis that ‘there is a statistically significant correlation across a number of universities between library activity data and student attainment’ is either wholly or partly proved for each data type and partner\ud \ud \ud Originality and value of the proposal. The Library Impact Data Project builds on research from the 1960s that suggests that certain disciplines have less need for books; however, the project extends this research into the need for electronic resources for the first time.

A seminar on open access featuring Dr Alma Swan presenting 'Me and my impact: what can this repository thing do to help?'