Web Analytics Service

The URC manages the Google Analytics (GA4) service for Harvard Library. We are here to help library staff with GA4 strategy, GA4 training, and the creation of  GA4 dashboards, explorations, and reports. 

Service Information

The service includes:

  • Management of requests for access to Google Analytics for library staff
  • Advice on analytics strategy
  • Advice on when to use analytics or user research to answer questions
  • Creation of dashboards, explorations, and reports for digital products
  • Help with setting up event tags for digital products
  • GA4 training 
  • Awareness of Google Analytics product updates

The service is available to any library staff with a need to access web analytics data for their webpage, website, or digital products. Staff can email libraryux@harvard.edu with requests. 

How Harvard Library Uses Google Analytics

Before 2023, Harvard Library's use of Google Analytics had historically been siloed between websites. Our new GA4 instance has cross-domain tracking enabled to track all of our digital properties in a singular GA4 instance opposed to many Universal Analytics instances. 

With cross-domain tracking, GA4 uses browser cookies to track a single user’s journey between sites. Now we are able to have a reasonably reliable count of how many users in a session move from a LibGuide to HOLLIS opposed to two separate user counts like in the old disparate instances.  

A note when looking at historical data: GA4's way of tracking is very different from its predecessor Universal Analytics (UA). The biggest difference between UA and GA4 is that UA metrics were based on pageviews and sessions and GA4 metrics are based on events and parameters. When comparing new data with historical data the numbers might be very different, but we’ve found percentages are similar.

The tools we use include Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Looker, and Google Search Console. 

To learn more about our GA4 instance check out the Google Analytics Lunch and Learn Amy Deschenes and Meg McMahon presented in April 2023.