50 - Office 365 Apps for Library Statistics

Background: The role and responsibilities of medical librarians are not always clear to leadership and stakeholders. Providing data in a way that is clear and meaningful demonstrates the value of medical librarians. It is challenging for solo librarians to receive funding to purchase a data tracking system. The objective of this project was to build a data tracking system within Office 365 applications, provided by the institution.

Description: There are over 20 Office 365 applications available. After reviewing individual applications and conducting trials the applications used in the data tracking system are Microsoft Forms, Excel and Power BI. These three applications work together effectively to input, analyze and report library statistics. The final data tacking system integrates within Teams for easy sharing within the institution without additional funding.

Conclusion: For solo librarians and small libraries there is often no funding to establish a data tracking system. Office 365 provides the applications to create an internal data tracking system that is efficient, easy to use and requires no extra cost.