Consulting Statistics

For DSC staff and library administration — direct consultation counts, project task metrics, and patron breakdowns.

At a Glance (2021–2026)

Last rendered: March 10, 2026

Direct Consultations 741 DSC + DataSquad combined; canceled excluded · ↓ -41% · 238 in 2024 vs 405 in 2023

DSC Staff 462 LibInsight scheduled exports

DataSquad 142 Walk-in sign-ins

Task Cards (Reportable) 204 Trello; backlog/admin lists excluded · ↑ +1350% · 87 in 2024 vs 6 in 2023

Direct Consultations

Horizontal bar chart: DSC consultations by year from 2021 to 2024. 2021: 341; 2022: 393; 2023: 405; 2024: 394.

Bar chart: consultations by team. DSC = 1043; Datasquad = 325; Other = 166.

Project Work & Task Metrics

These metrics represent follow-on project work assigned to DataSquad members. They are not direct consultations.

Metric Value
Direct Consultations (Combined, Deduped) 741
DataSquad Task Cards (Reportable) 204
DataSquad Task Activity (Reportable, Comment-Weighted) 612
DataSquad Direct + Reportable Task Activity 754

Grouped bar chart showing Trello task card counts and comment-weighted activity by year, split by all cards vs reportable-filtered cards.

Research Impact

These examples show how DSC and DataSquad support extends into sustained technical collaboration beyond single consultations.

Carceral Ecologies

Partners: UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics (Nicholas Shapiro)

The DSC and UCLA DataSquad provided multi-year research support for the Carceral Ecologies Lab, including R server infrastructure, data processing support, and student training for work on a helicopter surveillance dataset. In collaboration with DSC staff, DataSquad contributors helped build a workflow that made iterative analysis feasible at research scale.

Measurable outcomes: Reduced processing time from ~318 minutes to ~2 minutes (about a 99.4% reduction; ~159x faster). Built sustainable capacity by training a research student in R-based workflows.

Impact signals: National media coverage (Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, Bloomberg) and support for award-recognized UCLA public-impact research.

BioCritical Studies Lab

Partners: UCLA (Grace Sosa; Terence Keel)

The DSC and UCLA DataSquad supported the BioCritical Studies Lab through a multi-year collaboration focused on data integration, statistical analysis, and visualization for a large deaths-in-custody research dataset. DataSquad consultants worked with DSC staff to build sustainable tools and workflows that improved maintainability and ongoing use of the data.

Measurable outcomes: Substantial dataset cleanup and transformation for geographic analysis and visualization, with workflows designed for continued updates and reuse.

Impact signals: Supported research recognized through UCLA’s 2024 Public Impact Research Awards and contributed to long-term public-facing scholarship and teaching outputs.

period label workstream audience request theme work performed outcome
2025 Q1 datasquad faculty data management Reviewed repository options, metadata needs, and access constraints for course use Identified a workable publication/access path and follow-up implementation steps
2025 Q1 dsc student geospatial analysis Provided troubleshooting and workflow guidance for GIS data integration Unblocked next analysis steps and clarified tool-specific workflow decisions
2025 Q1 datasquad staff programming workflow Investigated code/tooling options and documented a reproducible approach Delivered a documented approach the requester could continue independently

See also: Instruction → workshop attendance · Infrastructure → Dataverse and AWS metrics · About & methodology

  • Direct consultations: LibInsight scheduled exports + manual logs (DSC staff); DataSquad walk-in sign-in forms
  • Canceled appointments excluded from all direct consultation counts
  • Deduplication: manual LibInsight logs matched against scheduled exports using a same-provider/same-minute heuristic; ~4 duplicates removed
  • Task metrics (Trello cards, comment-weighted activity) are shown separately — not comparable to consultation counts
  • Reportable filter: excludes Inbox, Future Projects/Ideas, Team Info lists; includes archived completed cards
  • YoY comparisons (2023 → 2024): direct consultation decline reflects shifting data sources and intake channels, not necessarily service volume; task card growth reflects expanded Trello adoption in 2024, not a proportional workload increase
  • Full rules: Metrics Governance · About

UCLA Library Data Science Center. (2026). Consulting Statistics. Retrieved from https://ucla-data-science-center.github.io/dsc-stats-reports/consulting.html

Last rendered: March 10, 2026