This study presents a novel approach for assessing and prioritising relative weights of the factors in order to reveal the level of each factors' contribution to the usability index system in the context of library websites. The inputs of experts in the related field were used to probe weights of seven key dimensions and 20 measuring items of library website usability. These factors covering both dimensions and measuring items were identified and validated from the authors' previous study. The study employed fuzzy theories along with the extent analysis fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) method with the expectation of scrutinising the relative importance of the criteria of interest while avoiding uncertainty, ambiguity, loss of data, and difficulties in assessment cycle. In order to maintain uniformity in expert consensus, triangular fuzzy numbers were used instead of linguistic values. The research findings revealed that the satisfaction was the most important dimension, while accessibility was considered the least important. In addition, the top 7 of the 20 measurement items investigated accounted for 49.37% of importance. The results indicate that more attention is needed in ensuring those websites are comfortable and fulfilled with clear information required for the users, while less time and effort can be given to readability and compatible capability considerations.
A library website plays an enhanced role compared to its traditional physical library while providing a wide variety of library services to its users. Evaluation of library websites is a key to realize the extent of user acceptance to the website and to improve overall quality of website. Usability is a highly recognized factor to determine how easy to use the website. The models of usability evaluations evaluate the ease of use of website operations and see whether the users can perform their tasks competently. Moving on further, this study has been undertaken in context of library websites in Sri Lanka with the main purpose of exploring the relations between different dimensions of website usability and their impact. The study first investigated the common dimensions of website usability together with instrument items to measure dimensions by integrating the findings of an extensive literature review as well as discussions with local experts. The measurement instrument was then empirically validated its reliability and validity for the Sri Lankan library system with the aids of actual library users in Sri Lanka. Descriptive statistics methods and structural equation modelling techniques were applied. The proposed usability evaluation model consisted of the seven dimensions and two to three measurement items for each dimension. It is expected that this model can be used as a library website usability evaluation tool to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the website and update the website performance up-to-date.
A library website plays an enhanced role compared to its traditional physical library while providing a wide variety of library services to its users. Evaluation of library websites is a key to realize the extent of user acceptance of the website and to improve the overall quality of the website. Under such backdrop, this paper provides a framework for ranking university library websites in Sri Lanka based on two standard webometric methods. The proposed framework consists of quantitative web presence measuring attributes namely; size, visibility, rich files and scholars along with simple and comprehensible mathematical calculations. The library administrators can get awareness about whether their website has effectively represented itself on the internet with better performance from the ranking results. The findings of the study will guide to the librarians to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses accordingly with the performance of their library websites. In general, the effective presence of these library websites on the internet can be passed on as the top by having proper number of site pages in the website that impact their perceivability through web search tools and accordingly the quantity of received external links. Meanwhile, libraries having low rich files can publish more rich files on the web to improve their overall rank. The research approach, criteria and their relative impact provide useful information in monitoring the effectiveness of the current websites and provide strategic suggestions to develop enhanced websites.
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