Recently, I helped out with a presentation for our Hot Topics discussion group that involved coming up with some web use statistics. There were some very interesting ones that indicated that in addition to research help, which we expect the site is used for, unique materials are another key feature that consistently brings in users from the web. For instance, Howard Hughes has been and continues to be a popular search term that delivers users to our site!
Interestingly, the meeting coincided with the publishing of a timely article titled, Using Wikipedia to Extend Digital Collections, which details the efforts the University of Washington has made to include links to their digital collections in relevant Wikipedia articles. I think this is a great idea and I have added a general link to UNLV Digital Collections on Lied Library's Wikipedia page and also added specific collection links on pages like the Hoover Dam and Showgirl pages. Since many people now turn to Wikipedia as a first source for general information I will be monitoring web statistics to track whether these links show a new trend of users linking in from Wikipedia.
