Many retail stores consider footfalls as an essential step for their growth. Footfall, the people counting, shopper counting, or traffic, is the measurement of the number of people that enter into a shop. This footfall often helps the managing team to determine other matrices of growth in their brand because it allows the staff to directly study the customer’s behavior.

CELECT believes that the concept of footfall can also be applied in the working of libraries but the question is, how? While libraries are facing difficulty to attract more and more people to the area, measuring footfall can be a good idea to drive more traffic towards the library. Still, confused? Read on to find out how...

Measuring footfall doesn’t mean invading the users privacy, but is a mean to improve library services

Understanding the usage of the library and its users

Footfall, or analyzing the visitors in the library, is a great way to understand the needs of the people. In this way, libraries can encourage more visitors to the place for reading by making it more interesting for the readers.

Besides, footfall analysis in libraries can be extremely effective because it helps in understanding the behavior of the readers. So, know if the readers are expecting long opening hours, a new collection of books, or more free services by a simple yet efficient process of footfall.

Analyze the working of different departments

Utilization and optimization of departments in a library is one of the most crucial parts of the management. For the better performance and working of different departments, footfall data give libraries a clear picture of how each department is working and what should be done to ensure better user experience.

PTC - Patron Traffic Counter for libraries provides an insight about which department the customer is looking to access or which type of service the customer is visiting the library for!

Know the peak time of the library

Knowing at what time the libraries are mostly crowded is the best way to find out the boom time. This is where measuring footfall becomes handy because not only it will help the staff to analyze user’s experience but also can record visitors in number every hour. Besides, a lot can be done amidst this peak time to increase sales and loans from the libraries.

Whenever the library attracts a high number of readers, it can plan ahead in advance and be prepared to handle a large number. Moreover, by managing staff well in advance can optimize the working of the staff as well as control the opening hours well.

Improving the footfall

Footfall can be described as a footfall booster itself. How? Well, when the library analyses the behavior of the visitors, understanding the planning in the library and flaws and perfections in the place can result in taking more efficient decisions to attract more people. When required changes are done using footfall measurements, the libraries will become a better place for people who are keen readers.

Acquire data for better infrastructure planning

Sometimes, just having a wide range of books does not promise more people into the library. A little attention has to be paid on the infrastructure of the library. One of the main factors that help in getting the attention of the visitor is the aesthetic decor which should be soothing yet attractive. Even if it is about keeping a good reading space or bringing changes to the architecture of the premises, calculating footfall will signify it all.

Displays the library’s achievements

Having more is always better. This works in the library too when we are talking about more and more visitors. Like any retail store, having a large amount of footfall directly depicts the accomplishments of the library.

Know areas of improvement

Once you have the footfall statistics, it becomes easier to analyze the data. For an academic library, library footfall statistics can present an easy opportunity to improve the footfall. e.g if in a university library, the footfall analysis indicates that a particular branch or a department is not using the library in an efficient way. That gives the library an indication that maybe that particular branch or department is not fully aware of the library features and functions. It might be a good idea to hold certain exclusive sessions for that branch or department. That is one way to improve on it. But is would not have been possible unless the library knew which department or the branch is not using the library in an efficient manner.

Conclusion

Footfall is not only limited to any retail store, leisure and service-providing industries but can also be implemented in libraries as well. Nowadays, many libraries are gaining rewards just from visitor’s counts then why can’t you? With a few simple analysis of the data received from footfall, you can change your library and make it a better place for the readers.

CELECT provides PTC - Patron Traffic Counter supporting various modes of identification of patrons. The system can be customized to support various needs of the library. It provides statistics which can help the library to analyze how it is doing and in which section there is scope of improvement.

COVID19: coronavirus update

CELECT has modified PTC - Patron Traffic Counter to provide two essential alerts in COVID19 times. These features should further help libraries to maintain social distancing and provide relevant services to all, both of which are important in the current context.

Firstly, the system will generate alerts in case the number of people inside a library are approaching a particular threshold of capacity of the library.

Secondly, the system will also automatically provide alerts in case a particular user is overusing the library space over the allowed time span. This particular feature is very useful in public libraries.