Morgan, 'A Report on Use of the Gopher at the NCSU Libraries', NCSU Libraries Newsletter v21n08 (March 1994)
 
_The NCSU Libraries Newsletter_
Volume 21 no. 8
March 1994
Morgan, Eric Lease
"A Report on Use of the Gopher at the NCSU Libraries"


This report summarizes the activity of the Gopher at the NCSU 
Libraries from January  through December 1993.  The report is 
based on the number of connections made to the server, and it 
analyzes who accessed it rather than what was accessed.  
Because of a deficiency in the gopher server's logging 
mechanism, more detailed analyses were not possible.  Despite 
these limitations, a good understanding of who is using the 
server and what is most popular can be determined.

Total Connections

Every connection made to our gopher server was counted, 
whether a user initially connected to the gopher, or selected a 
menu item, or navigated down menus.  During 1993 there were 
872,580 connections made to the server.  These connections 
were made by 12,335 different computers, which averages out 
to one connection every 37 seconds.  Throughout the year, the 
number of connections per month has steadily increased from a 
low of roughly 20,000 in January to 120,000 in December.  The 
server reached an all-time high in January 1994, when more 
than 150,000 connections were made.

Who Uses Our Server?

The University is the heaviest single user of the server, which 
accounts for more than 12 percent of the total connections.  Of 
the connections originating on campus, the vast majority of 
them come from the Libraries.  The remaining 72 percent of 
the connections are made from computers outside the 
University, and these users connect to the gopher less than 1 
percent of the time.  OhioLink, a consortium of libraries in 
Ohio, is the single host that uses the server most frequently.

It is interesting to note the use of the gopher by the 
Cooperative Extension Service.  The extension service hosts a 
gopher server used by people across the state, and much of 
what their server points to is the library gopher.  
Consequently, the Libraries is serving many North Carolina 
citizens through the extension service.

Analysis of the types of institutions accessing the gopher 
reveals that educational sites are the most frequent users.  An 
"Other" category, however, is a strong contender, which 
includes all foreign countries and sites elsewhere in the 
United States.  Also in the "Other" category are commercial 
servers, among which the Delphi company makes more than 
half the connections.

What Is Being Accessed?

Determining what is being accessed is difficult.  By counting 
the number of times particular directories were accessed, a 
general portrait of what is being used emerges.

The most popular directory is the /library directory.  This 
directory contains the "Reference Desk" and "Study Carrels."  
Perhaps its popularity is because many other gopher servers on 
the Internet link our server to their servers through this 
directory.  Next, the Internet guides of the Reference Desk 
seem to be the most popular.

Summary

The number of connections to the Gopher at the NCSU Libraries 
continues to increase, perhaps because of the growing 
awareness of Internet services.  The NCSU community uses the 
gopher server heavily, and the server provides access to an 
even greater number of users outside the University.  While 
gopher technology provides tremendous power for collecting, 
organizing, and disseminating information, it pales in 
comparison to the HyperText Transfer Protocol (World Wide 
Web or WWW).  Having shown that the client/server computing 
model can be successfully applied to library procedures, the 
Libraries will use that knowledge to build a better server 
based on use of the WWW.