Electronic Pathfinders in Academic Libraries: An Analysis of Their Content and Form

Abstract

Forty-five electronic pathfinders were selected from nine Canadian uni versity libraries to assess their degree of conformity to suggested guide lines in the existing literature about pathfinders. The content and the format of the chosen pathfinders were assessed in terms of consistency and scope. Also considered were overall readability and whether they were effectively constructed to be used as starting points for further research. The analysis revealed that the guidelines were not uniformly followed, leaving some pathfinders more complex and less useful than others. Further, it demonstrated that specific guidelines must be created for electronic pathfinders because they pose particular problems that are not addressed in the current literature about pathfinders in general. ibrary pathfinders, or subjectTo maximize their usefulness, howguides, are used in many acaever, librarians must be aware of several demic libraries to help library issues when creating and making pathusers with their initial research finders available. The format of each needs by making them aware of various resources and how they can be used.

Academic Subject Guides: A Case Study of Use at San José State University

“…Also, Dahl points to a number of guidelines for creating subject guides including consistency, readability, and usability. 13 However, once again, these guidelines are not defined by user studies.…”

El papel de las bibliotecas en el acceso a recursos web de calidad

“…De hecho, según Dahl (2001), estas guías son menos útiles cuando tratan de abarcar temas muy amplios y son especialmente apropiadas para temas más específicos, como por ejemplo una asignatura (COURTOIS; HIGGINS; KAPUR, 2003). Por lo general cuentan con enlaces a recursos de internet, obras de referencia, manuales, catálogos y bases de datos, diccionarios y glosarios, congresos o eventos relacionados con la materia y otro tipo de fuentes, en función de la disciplina y de la audiencia a la que van dirigidas, y suelen ir acompañadas de una breve descripción del contenido de dichos recursos.…”

Library subject guides: A case study of evidence-informed library development

“…Some authors also allude to the ad hoc nature of guide creation - Wales (2005) Whether a guide on a particular subject is necessary is a matter for discussion but it is important to select topics consistently. Guides aimed at a broader subject level may appear less obviously useful to students -they may be 'too broad to be very helpful' (Dahl, 2001). Course-specific guides may be more useful than those about a subject (Courtois et al, 2003).…”

“…A number of articles describe studies evaluating guides provided by university libraries. The criteria suggested for assessing guides include purpose and format (Galvin, 2005) consistency, scope, readability / usability (Wales, 2005;Dahl, 2001;Kapoun, 1995), and currency, especially in links to websites (Wales, 2005). Based on the criteria found within the existing literature, the project team identified a set of categories and examined our University's own guides in the light of them.…”