Starting With Web Management Reports for Statistics

Web Management Reports (WMR) provides a browser interface to most of the key circulation statistics available through the Minerva system. It should be noted, though, that there are also some circulation reports only available on the character-based side. In order to take full advantage of the statistical capabilities of the Minerva software, a serious user of circulation statistics should explore both approaches. In addition, the Millennium Statistical Reports module provides a wide variety of general statistics about the bibliographic and patron databases that may also be of interest to to those concerned with circulation operations.

General

To access WMR, point your browser to: http://minerva.maine.edu/manage/ .

Initials and password, with appropriate permissions, are required. If you find yourself unable to access WMR due to a permissions issue, contact the system administrator.

The Millennium logo is present on every screen. Click on it to return to the starting point.

Most tables can be downloaded as comma-delimited files and subsequently loaded into a spreadsheet or database management program for further manipulation and analysis.

While some basic graphing functions are provided, for many purposes downloading the data and producing graphs using a full-blown spreadsheet package will provide more satisfactory results.

Patron Searches

Statistics are kept for the most recent 10 days of OPAC searches.

The number and type of searches are most interesting, though their value within a consortium like Minerva is reduced by lack of ability to isolate search statistics for a particular library.

Circ Activity

In general, one can specify stats for yesterday, day before yesterday, month to date, last month, a range of months, year to date, and last year. Getting Friday stats on Monday cannot be done.

It is usually necessary to specify the conditions for a report from the top down, i.e. type of statistic, date, location and type. Changing one of these criteria out of order will often "unset" the others.

The most interesting categories are:

All Activity
Checkout
Can limit to One Only, or Special
Renewal
Can limit to One Only, or Special
Patrons

Collection Development

Collection Development reports are intended to be run on an occasional basis, e.g. for an annual report. They can take up to several hours to create and are left on the server until someone removes them.

They report activity by narrow classification number (Statistical Category or "SCAT") range. Unfortunately, the report is oriented toward call numbers stored in the bib record. If they are stored in the item record, the system looks only at the first item record and bases the SCAT range on it. In a consortium with a mix of Dewey and LC call number, this means many call numbers will be mis-categorized.

Other Statistics

Create Statistical Reports within the character-based side of the system supports additional variations, particularly with respect to non-circulation stats. In addition, it makes it easier to focus on a single library. The online manual has extensive information on Web Management Reports, as well as the powerful options for manipulating statistics within the character based system.

For the Public