Pidgin Setup for Library IM Services

Getting Started | Centralized Logging | Usage Statistics | Meebo Me Widget

Usage Statistics

Get a basic, rough count of IM usage statistics with nothing more than built-in Windows features. Because Pidgin stores its transcripts neatly in plain-text format, we can search for files that meet certain criteria, e.g., searching for all IMs from a particular month. To find all AIM chats from April 2007 (View Screenshot): Click the Start Button. Click Search and pick Files and Folders. Tell the search where to look (for instance, g:\pidginstuff\.purple\logs\aim\your-screen-name). Fill in *.txt for All or part of the file name. Specify desired dates, in this case, Modified Date from 4/1/2007 to 4/30/2007. Click Search. See a preliminary count in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, or select all of the files, right-click, and get the Properties to see the number or results. However, note this number is almost always too high. First of all, in the case of AIM transcripts, if you have files for the screen name AOL System Message, do not count these. They are system-generated. Get rid of files from 1. Bots and spammers These often say something like, "look at my pictures," with a hyperlink. 2. Real users with one-line follow-ups Messages often arrive after the librarian has closed the window following a session. Pidgin generates a new text file for each. Usually, these files say only "thanks," "bye," or "you too." Finding These Files Luckily, both of these types of files are very small. Return to your search window and sort files by size. Click the Size column heading. Open everything reported as 1Kb. Some files will be legitimate, complete chats, so do not eliminate all 1Kb files. It is easy to open these all at once. Read quickly through, keeping a tally of chats to eliminate from your total. After totalling "false" chats, subtract from your total. Hint: Avoid running any taxing applications when opening a large number of files. Note: Of course, this method really is very basic, and results only in a tally. It does not allow for subject categorization, breakdown by the time spent on each IM session, or multiple questions from the same patron during the same IM session. Service providers will need to decide how long to keep files and should consider a privacy policy.

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