Library Data

CCA Libraries record data related to our collection, how it’s used by the college community, and the services we provide. The data shown here provides insight into some of the work we do.

Don’t see what you’re looking for? We keep many more data sets, contact the Systems Librarian Eric Phetteplace to see if he can find the information you need. If you’re looking for data on California College of the Arts as a whole, the Data@CCA site has details relating to our data governance, common data dashboard, and institutional metrics.

Visualizations & Presentations

Reference Statistics Steamgraph Reference Statistics Steamgraph

See how the time of day or week of the semester affects the libraries' reference services. The beginning of the semester is very busy, especially with directional questions from new students. Interestingly, the week of Thanksgiving is generally not busy but had a surprising number of reference questions (ones which involve research assistance).

Catalog Facets Treemap Catalog Facet Treemap

See the usage figures for the left-side facets in the library catalog which people use to refine their searches. Practical ones like location and item type are used far more often than topic-narrowing choices like subject or author. You can click a facet on the treemap to see what the most popular selections …

For our internal CCA Libraries' staff meetings, librarians create presentations of interesting and informative statistics from the past year or semester. Here are several of our slide decks:

The data presented may not be understandable without the complete context of the presentation. You can contact Eric Phetteplace with any questions you may have.

Public Services

We record whenever we answer a patron’s inquiry, categorizing its general nature: “reference” is a research question, “service” questions relate to services that the libraries provide, “technical/computing” is assistance with computers or technology, and “directional” is simple directions to campus locations.

Circulation

This table below shows circulation of items via the library catalog by academic year. Items include not only books but videos, magazines, academic journals, material samples, and mixed media objects.

The COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding campus closure lead to a substantial decline in circulation during those times. Meyer Library closed permanently in the Fall of 2022.

Meyer Library, Oakland2019-202020-212021-222022-23
Books2,74622886313
Periodicals343170
Videos2827400
Other materials30250
Equipment114130
Meyer subtotal3,20624192813
Simpson Library, SF2019-202020-212021-222022-23
Books6,1973223,0554,548
Periodicals22836466
Videos11615595
Other materials9719345
Equipment5502944
Simpson subtotal6,6933273,2964,798
Materials Library8107393
Annual totals9,9805684,2974,904

Collection Size

The tables below show the size of the CCA Libraries' collections as of July, 2023.

TypeNumber of TitlesNumber of Items
Archival Materials3,5814,849
Books54,69158,709
Digital/Electronic Books243243
Material Samples7302,359
Periodicals37013,844
Reserves454
Videos2,7644,090
Other549774
Totals 62,93284,922
TypeOrders (past year)  
Books228  
Periodicals1  
Reserves0  
Videos5  
Other0  
Total orders 234