This is the README.txt file for the dataset of Voyager, Alma, and
EZProxy files I (Dorothea Salo) received pursuant to an April 2021
open-records request I made to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. I
am grateful to the Public Records Office and to General Library System
IT staff for acceding to my request promptly and helpfully.
CONTACT INFO
I can be reached at dorothea@dsalo.info with questions about this
dataset.
ORIGINAL RECORDS REQUEST
My name is Dorothea Salo. Please provide me available records of my own
use of UW-Madison and UW System library-purchased materials, as found
in:
* the UW System's current Alma Integrated Library System's circulation
records
* its associated Alma Analytics portal
* any persisting records
from the previous Integrated Library System, Voyager
* EZProxy usage
logs associated with my netIDs (see below) or, starting in 2012, the IP
address IP_REDACTED (a static IP address assigned to my iSchool office
workstation) -- raw log lines are fine
To help bracket your search: I have been associated with UW-Madison from
1993-98 (graduate student and TA), 2003-05 (graduate student, student
hourly worker), and 2007-present (employee of the General Library System
2007-11, iSchool instructor 2011-present). I understand that earlier
records may have been destroyed already in accordance with records
schedules.
As for privacy/confidentiality:
* I seek only my own records
* the
current records schedule for Alma circulation records states a ten-year
retention schedule past an employee's termination date, giving "faculty
convenience" as its justification for this schedule, and
* the General
Library System has no privacy policy at present.
My netIDs have been dmrovner (through 2007 or 2008, I believe) and salo
(through the present day). I am happy to verify that this request comes
from me via my UW-Madison email account, salo@wisc.edu. I also
understand that there may be cost involved in locating these records;
please inform me of those charges.
Many thanks! Dorothea Salo
REQUEST MODIFICATION
At the request of the Records Office, I provided the identification
number on my WisCard. I am grateful that they asked me, and should have
thought of this myself! This (rather than my netID) turns out to be the
key used in the EZProxy database.
FILE MANIFEST AND EXPLANATIONS
* Notes folder: Contains notes from General Library System IT staff
about how various files were obtained. I have not altered these other
than placing them in their own folder.
* P001613-040121_AlmaAnalytics-LoanHistory.csv This is an export of my
records from the Alma Analytics system. The earliest loan date present
is 2015-08-04, which should be close to the date Alma went live.
* P001613-040121-CurrentLoans_20210518.xlsx This is an accurate record
of books that I had checked out and had in my possession as of the date
in the filename. It comes from the Alma system.
* P001613-040121-ReturnHistory_20210518.xlsx This is an accurate (as far
as I remember) record of books and other materials I checked out from
campus libraries. The earliest loan date in the log is 2015-08-04.
* P001613-040121-audit-log.txt These lines are from an EZProxy
authentication log. Note that they associate my WisCard identification
number with the IP address of the computer I was using. Retention period
appears to be quite short: two days.
* P001613-040121-ip-address-occurrences-raw.txt This empty file
represents EZProxy-mediated e-resource access from my office IP address.
I believe it to be empty because I have not used my computer in my
office since the March 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, and the EZProxy log
retention period (see below) appears to be six months long.
* P001613-040121-photo-id-occurrences-raw.csv This is derived (see below
for exact alterations made) from an EZProxy access log containing
records of my OFF-CAMPUS e-resource access. There was an associated
"cleaned" file, but it contained no new information so I removed it.
Retention period appears to be roughly six months; the earliest access
in the log is 2020-12-01.
* P001613-040121-040121.txt This is a pipe-separated file exported from
data retained from the Voyager ILS that the General Library System used
before migrating to Alma. It represents materials I checked out from
campus libraries between 2002-11-24 and 2015-03-12 and is accurate to
the best of my recollection. This suggests at least a 20-year retention
period for circulation records, but it may in fact be longer; I do not
know when Voyager first went live and did not ask for pre-Voyager
records.
I should note that I misstated my dates to the records office; I was an
employee of the UW Survey Center between 2001 and 2004. The error was
mine, and they found the 2002 checkouts anyway!
ALTERATIONS MADE (OR NOT)
Some of the files have character-encoding artifacts, usually in titles
of materials I consulted; I did not bother to fix these.
I have altered the files sent to me in the following ways:
* IP addresses of computers accessing resources, where present, have
been replaced with the string IP_ADDRESS_REDACTED.
* WisCard
identification numbers, where present, have been replaced with the
string ID_REDACTED. (Usually these were my number, but the "Modified By"
column in the Alma Analytics table looked like someone else's number, so
I redacted it in an abundance of caution.)
The EZProxy access log file
(P001613-040121-photo-id-occurrences-raw.csv) was imported into
OpenRefine and the following changes made:
* EZProxy-installation-specific information (such as the EZProxy server
name) was removed.
* EZProxy's URLs were programmatically changed to the
URL of the resource sought.
* Article titles were added when possible.
(This was not done for TOC, author-instruction, and EBSCO saved-search
pages.)