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Article
Tracking User Behavior with Google Analytics Events on an Academic Library Website
Journal of Web Librarianship
  • Amy Vecchione, Boise State University
  • Deana Brown, Boise State University
  • Elizabeth Allen, Boise State University
  • Amanda Baschnagel, Boise State University
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-16-2016
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19322909.2016.1175330
Abstract

The primary purpose of an academic library website is to serve as a portal to library-acquired content. Navigational design of a library website affects the user’s ability to find and access content. At Albertsons Library, the goal of the navigational design of the website is to mimic user behavior on the website to help them access information and articles from over 300 different library vendors. Coordinating with different vendors makes tracking the navigational flow of user behavior difficult with the tool Google Analytics. Using the events feature in Google Analytics, the team responsible for web design was able to track user flow, and was able to quantify how many users were actual “drop-offs” versus those that were clicks into library resources. Decisions made after acquiring this data resulted in a website with a 10 percent or less bounce rate, and decreased the number of clicks required for users accessing the library's content.

Comments

The published title is “Tracking User Behavior with Google Analytics Events on an Academic Library Web Site”.

Date provided is the online early release publication date.

Copyright Statement

This is an author-produced, peer-reviewed version of this article. The final, definitive version of this document can be found online at the Journal of Web Librarianship, published by Routledge. Copyright restrictions may apply. doi: 10.1080/19322909.2016.1175330

Citation Information
Amy Vecchione, Deana Brown, Elizabeth Allen and Amanda Baschnagel. "Tracking User Behavior with Google Analytics Events on an Academic Library Website" Journal of Web Librarianship (2016)
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