Montana State University (Montana State University Library)

Montana State University and its partners, OCLC Research, the Association of Research Libraries, and the University of New Mexico, will address issues related to assessment of digital collections and institutional repositories by improving the accuracy and privacy of web analytics reporting on digital library use. The project team will examine the difficulties that libraries face in producing accurate reports of the use of their digital repositories through web analytics software and recommend best practices that help improve accuracy and consistency of these reports while also protecting user privacy. This work will provide the necessary frameworks, data models, and best practices librarians and archivists need to establish baselines, measure progress, and make informed policy decisions. Additional recommendations will include an assessment framework so that libraries may begin to measure the impact of open access institutional repositories to evaluate digital library performance and enable impact studies on author citation rates and university rankings.