Using a questionnaire distributed to participants in the library instruction programmes at two Canadian universities, the author studied students’ understanding of the need for Web site evaluation and their ability to articulate criteria for evaluation. The results show that students view Web sources somewhat critically and are aware of standard Web site evaluation criteria.
ince subject searching is often unsuccessful in library catalogs (studies report success rates from 12 percent to 75 percent), it is tempting to keep looking for ways to help users get more satisfactory results.1 Because I had observed that reference librarians use keyword searching more than library users (and this observation was confirmed in a study from Adelphi University), I decided to investigate what might happen if all searches were automatically done as keyword searches, and what effect use of keyword searches has on the level of satisfaction of library users.
2Concluding that some changes in searching styles might be useful, I surveyed available OPAC interfaces to see whether keyword searching was easily available and whether the instructions and help offered to users of controlled vocabulary searching mentioned keyword searching.
Benchm arking w a itin g tim esB y J o y T illo tso n , J a n i c e A d lin g to n , a n d C y n th ia H olt
On average users wait about two minutes to speak to a librarianJ o y Tillotson is b e a d , In form a tio n S erv ices, a t M em o r ia l University o f N e w fo u n d la n d ; e-m a il: jo y t@ m o r g a n .u c s .m u n .c a . J a n i c e A d lin g ton is n etw o rk r eso u rc es lib r a r ia n a t Trinity C ollege; e -m a il: ja n ic e .a d lin g to n ® m a il. c c .trin c o ll.e d u . C y n th ia H olt is r e fe r e n c e lib r a r ia n a n d b ib lio g r a p h e r a t th e University o f M a n ito b a ; e -m a il: h o lt@ c c .u m a n ito b a .c a
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