The library as information provider: The home page

Abstract

Many libraries are using the Internet's World Wide Web to provide information/or library clients and others. The article begins with a brief discussion of the situation in one country, Iceland, based on a November 1995 questionnaire survey. Among other things, this Icelandic survey looked at library use of the Internet and the ways in which libraries are using the World Wide Web to provide information via a homepage. A larger Nordic study, of which this Icelandic study was part, sets the Icelandic findings in a broader context. To take this further into an international setting content analyses were carried out of the home pages of public libraries and school libraries in 13 different countries. After a short description of the methodology, the results of these analyses are presented Based on this, there is a discussion of the purposes for which a library might create a home page on the World Wide Web and of the information that might be provided through the homepage, depending on the purpose or aim. The final section of the paper deals with issues and problems associated with the creation and maintenance of a library home page.

A Design Analysis of Indiana Public Library Homepages

“…Clyde (1996) offered a list of potentially-useful website features, including a sensible page title and graphics and photographs, after analyzing first Icelandic, then Nordic, and then a broader group of 13 international public and school libraries (556). Raward (2001) began with a usability checklist based on Keevil's Web Usability Index Checklist, pilot-tested it with a small set of academic library websites, and then made modifications to the checklist so that it was more useful for libraries (127)(128).…”

Estudio webmétrico de los Archivos Nacionales Iberoamericanos: evaluación heurística vs evaluación automáticaEstudio webmétrico de los Archivos Nacionales Iberoamericanos: evaluación heurística vs evaluación automática

“…Sobre todo, se han realizado investigaciones en el campo de las bibliotecas, la mayoría centradas en el análisis de características subjetivas (Clyde, 1996;Clausen, 1999;Falk, 1999;Joint, 2001;Osorio, 2001;Chao, 2002;Clyde, 2004;Novljan y Žumer, 2004) aunque también existen algunos casos de modelos basados en indicadores formales (Stover y Zink, 1996Craven, 2000Spindler, 2002;Providenti, 2004;Schmetzke, 2005;Caballero-Cortés, Faba-Pérez y Moya-Anegón, 2009). …”

Library Web Sites at Historically Black Colleges and Universities

“…8 She discussed the purposes for which a library might create a home page and the information that such a home page might provide. Based on a survey of home pages of public libraries and school libraries in thirteen countries, her research focused on how libraries used the home page to provide information.…”