Timeline

This website is still under development, and will be officially released during May 2019.

Please contact heidi.k.olsen@uit.no for further information.

Timeline

2013

In the spring 2013 two parallell TTT studies were carried out in Vilnius and Oslo:

• At the library of Mykolas Romeris University
• At the main library of Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences

A first report from Vilnius will be published in October 2013.

2012

• Høivik, Tord. Students at work: Traffic observation in academic libraries. Paper for SCECSAL in Nairobi. Focus on academic libraries.
• TTT studies in two public libraries in the county of Buskerud, Norway. See graphics at
  • Nedre Eiker: Dashboard / Time series
  • Øvre and Nedre Eiker time series compared
• Pilot TTT study in the main library of Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. To be published.

2011

Traffic studies at

• Østfold University College
• Tromsø Public Library

2010

• PL 47/10: Children who “live” at the library. Case study.
• Observation data: getting started. Posted in GLOSSA blog
• Extensive traffic study at Gjøvik University College, 2010/11

2009

• Students in action: An observation study of the Oslo University College Learning Centre.
  • Large-scale traffic count during the spring 2009.
• PS 2/09. Private lives and public libraries. Paper for the 8th Northumbria conference in Florence in August 2009
  • Preprint published here (Google Docs)
  • Slide version (Google Presentation)

2008

During their second-year practicum periods (five weeks), OUC library students carry out small projects in the libraries to which they are assigned. A first report on the results, mainly based on Drammen Public Library, was presented at the IFLA conference in Quebec 2008.

• Count the traffic. Paper for IFLA, Quebec 2008.
  • See also Physical and virtual traffic
• Paper for IFLA 2008. How much is much? Developing and interpreting national library visitor statistics.
  • See also Physical and virtual traffic
  • National library web traffic. Spreadsheet with supporting and additional statistics.
• PL 17/08. Students gather in Porto. Abstract for BOBCATSSS 2009 workshop - on students as traffic observers.

2004-2007

The TTT method was first tried out at Oslo Public Library (Deichmanske bibliotek) in 2004 and at Gjerdrum Public Library in 2005. Gjerdrum is a small community of five thousand inhabitants thirty kilometers north of Oslo. In addition, full scale traffic counts have been carried out by library staff in Lillehammer Public Library (25.000 inhabitants) in 2006 and in Drammensbiblioteket (60.000) in 2007 and 2008

• PL 23/07. NTC - What happens inside libraries?. Introduction to TTT for Stellenbosch workshop in August 2007

General

In the social sciences observation is often described as a qualitative method. But systematic observation can definitely be used to collect quantitative data - as in the case of seating sweeps Its use in library studies seems to have been initiated by two Canadian researchers, Lisa Given and Gloria Leckie, who used the method to study user behavior in the Toronto Reference Library and the Vancouver Public Library in 1999. See TTT: Bibliography for details. Additional materials from TTT are available from the Norwegian version of this page. Further resources (analyses, data) based on Norwegian counts in public, academic, special and school libraries will be released.

Systematic tours of observation are used in many professional areas, like agriculture, biology and field archeology. In Norway we have tried to develop TTT as a standardized instrument to collect reliable comparative statistical data. An alternative, but closely related method, is to observe people as they enter and leave the library - see Children who “live” at the library and Observation data: getting started.

• A fifteen minute video lecture on TTT (by Tord Høivik) is available on Vimeo. Beta version ...
• For publications about TTT and other library observation tools see TTT: Bibliography
• Links to several brief empirical summaries from Norwegian libraries - academic and public - are listed in the right hand pane (TTT reports)
• The GLOSSA blog presents ongoing work from the IFLA project Global statistics for advocacy.