A Tale of Two Repositories: How Data Sources Affect Data Narratives

Abstract

Institutional, archival, and cultural heritage collections often rely upon quantitative measures to defend their continued existence and value. For digital repositories, interpreting and collecting user interaction data is a complex process that involves using third-party tools (such as Google Analytics) and local indices to collect and report use statistics. Data from one source, however, does not often corroborate data from another. These discrepancies are presented graphically to demonstrate the often unreliable relationships between sources and narratives.