Preserving a Library's Analytics History: UA Backup and Looker Studio for Malden Public Library

01// The broken state

With Universal Analytics being retired, Malden Public Library needed its historical web data preserved before the switch to Google Analytics 4. The brief was a complete backup of UA data covering 2021 to 2023, totalling 16.7 MB, so that past performance would remain available to inform decisions after the transition.

02// What we changed

1. aBacked up the full Universal Analytics dataset from 2021 to 2023 (16.7 MB) ahead of the GA4 transition
2. bBuilt a Looker Studio report presenting the historical data across Audience, Behavior, and Acquisition views
3. cAudience view: scorecards for Users, Sessions, Page Views, Pages per Session, Average Session Duration, and Bounce Rate; time series for users and sessions; bar charts comparing Page Views vs. Pages per Session; pie charts for browser, OS, screen resolution, and device category; and 1-, 7-, 14-, 28-, and 30-day active users
4. dBehavior view: scorecards for Page Views, Unique Page Views, and Average Time on Page; bar charts comparing Page Views vs. Unique Page Views and Bounce Rate vs. Exit Percentage; and tables for top pages, landing pages, and exit pages
5. eAcquisition view: a traffic-channel pie chart and a detailed table covering channel group, source/medium, campaign, and referrer with drill-down
6. fAdded flexible date-range selection and customizable filtering by dimensions such as channel group, source, medium, referrer, and campaign
7. gStructured the report so it can be updated or extended as needs change

03// The outcome

For the Malden Public Library, GA4 Experts captured a complete backup of Universal Analytics data spanning 2021 to 2023, totaling 16.7 MB, ahead of the GA4 transition. The historical record was preserved in a Looker Studio report covering audience, behavior, and acquisition, keeping the data accessible for ongoing analysis.