Project DirectorSuliang Feng

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Creative Data Mining Making Most of Your Data to
Improve Services
Project Director Suliang Feng
Project Principal Assistant Hongfei Li
Project Assistant Weimin Zhang
Presented by Suliang Feng
Administrator, Automation Technical Services
Elyse Adler Administrator, Research
Special Projects
Nashville Public Library
20th Annual Computers in Libraries 2005
March 17, 2005
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• The Challenges
• Budget cuts
• Staff reductions
• Increasing customer expectations for high
  quality library services
• Need a tool that can gather all the related
  deep buried data to perform systematical
  analysis and comparison, and supply meaningful
  data for decision-making. No such tool exists in
  current market.

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• The Solution
• Nashville Public Library has been developing
  a deep data mining system, which can monitor
  almost all the aspects of its operation, and
  supply administration with decision-making data.

• This system has been playing significant role
  in easing the gap between diminishing resources
  and demand for accountability.

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• Holds Management
• Holds Management is a section of the whole
  system, we will use this section for todays
  presentation
• Note The data use in this presentation is for
  demo purpose only, they do not necessary reflect
  the reality of the operation at Nashville Public
  Library

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• What can the Holds Management do for us?
• Use our limited book budget to get maximum
  return in terms of meeting customer needs
• What titles should we buy
• How many copies should we buy and why
• What is the status of the related orders
• Automatically calculated based on mathematical
  formula

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Collect All The Holds For Each Title
Challenge Find out all the holds under each
title and related items.
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Translate Holds Information To Purchase
Decisions (1)

• Sample The Broker/John Grisham - Holds 314
• Holds Ratio is 31
• The total number of copies to be added
• 314 holds / 3 - the total number of copies
  purchased

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List out total number of items purchased under
each title
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Translate Holds Information To Purchase
Decisions (1) Continue

• The total number of copies need to be added
• 314 holds / 3 - total copies purchased
• 314 holds / 3 55 copies
• 49.7 copies

Not all the copies purchased are still available
for service
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Translate Holds Information To Purchase
Decisions (2)

• We have to find out all the copies under each
  title that are no longer in service, which
  includes
• Lost Paid
• Damaged
• Claim Returned
• Withdrawn
• Missing
• Billed
• Staff Use

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The system can identify all the non-service
copies, deduct the amount from the total copies
purchased, and arrive at the number of available
copies accordingly
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Translate Holds Information To Purchase
Decisions (2) Continue

• The total number of copies need to be purchased
  
• 314 holds / 3 - total number of available
  copies
• 314 holds / 3 36 copies
• 68.7 copies

What about the copies currently on order ?
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Translate Holds Information To Purchase
Decisions (3)

• Finds out the total number of copies of each
  title currently on order
• Automatically links each title to its orders

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The system finds out all the items on order under
each title and then list them out
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Translate Holds Information To Purchase
Decisions (3) Continue

• The total number of copies need to be added
• 314 holds / 3 - total number of
  available copies total number of copies
  currently on order
• 314 holds / 3 36 32
• 36.7 copies

We should exam all the titles currently in
cataloging process stage and include all the
copies if there are any
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Translate Holds Information To Purchase
Decisions (4)

• The system then searches the total number of
  copies of each title currently in processing at
  Cataloging Department
• If copies are found, they will be included in
  the calculation

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Locate the total number of copies under each
title currently in processing
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Translate Holds Information To Purchase
Decisions (4) Continue

• The total number of copies need to be added
• 314 holds / 3 - total number of available
  copies total number of copies currently on
  order total number of copies currently in
  processing
• 314 holds / 3 36 32 2
• 34.7 copies

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Pay Attention to the Ratio Information !
There is a big difference in the ratios between
book and DVD, why?
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Translate Holds Information To Purchase
Decisions (5)

• Holds Ratio
• Books 31
• DVDs 121

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Translate Holds Information To Purchase
Decisions (5) Continue

• Holds Ratio
• Books 21 days check out 3 times of 21 days
  renews
• 21 days 3 x 21 days
• 21 days 63 days
• 84 days

• DVDs 7 days check out 1 time of 7 days renew
• 7 days 7 days
• 14 days

• 84 days / 14 days 6 times

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Translate Holds Information To Purchase
Decisions (5) Continue

• If we use 31 as holds ratio for books
• then the holds ratio for DVDs should be
• (3 x 6) 1
• 181
• We use 121 as Holds ratio for DVDs for now

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Needed or Not Green Light and Red Light
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System Demo
http//localhost/project1/holdslist.asp
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Thank You
Suliang Feng Administrator, Automation
Technical Services [phone]
suliang.feng_at_nashville.gov Elyse Adler
Administrator, Research Special Projects (615)
862-5776 elyse.adler_at_nashville.gov Nashville
Public Library 615 Church Street Nashville, TN,
37219