Analytics for everybody: A literature review of analytics practices in multi-organization digital collections

Abstract

With an abundance of digital library projects of all types and sizes, a common practice is for larger institutions to host digital collections for smaller ones. Many institutions use analytics data to inform their digital collections projects; have the larger host institutions established standards for sharing analytics data with smaller contributing institutions in multi-institution projects? This literature review of articles published between 2009 and 2019 (with selected earlier articles included) seeks to understand what data hosts provide and how contributors use this data, with an emphasis on promotion, metadata, and contributor engagement. The authors analyzed the articles against a framework of six research questions and concluded that there was little information on sharing analytics data. Further assessment of contributor needs and attitudes about analytics is warranted.