To read this content please select one of the options below:

Comparing collaborative annotations on books between libraries and social community sites: A case study

Dan Wu (School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China)
Xiaomei Xu (Library, Zhejiang University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Hangzhou, China.)
Wenting Yu (School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.)

The Electronic Library

ISSN: 0264-0473

Article publication date: 4 April 2016

664

Abstract

Purpose

Based on the study of overall situation of the tagging function in the provincial public libraries and library of major colleges and universities, this paper aims to examine the difference of tagging behaviour of its users in library and social community sites. The authors also want to understand the causes of a variety of annotation behavior in social community sites and libraries.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors collected all system log data of tags, comments and ratings users added in Wuhan University library, and then found the tags, comments and rating of corresponding books in Douban. Then, the authors did questionnaire survey to the Wuhan University students.

Findings

The authors found that the annotation service in the library is not perfect as that in social community site. Enthusiasm of users annotating books in the library is far less high than that on the social community sites. Lack of understanding of the annotation service is the main reason why users are not concerned or do not use the tagging service. But users have the needs of the organization of personal information in the library using tags.

Originality/value

This paper investigated the library users’ behavior in the using library OPAC course and compared the difference of annotation behavior between library and social community site.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This article is supported by National Program for Support of Top-notch Young Professionals in China.

Citation

Wu, D., Xu, X. and Yu, W. (2016), "Comparing collaborative annotations on books between libraries and social community sites: A case study", The Electronic Library, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 178-195. https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-09-2014-0171

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Related articles