Search results

The aim of this paper is to examine the phenomenon of search engine optimization (SEO) as a mechanism for improving libraries' digital content findability on the web.

The study applies web analytical tools, such as Alexa.com, in the collection of data about Canadian libraries' visibility performance in the ranking of search engine results. Concepts from the Integrated IS&R Research Framework are applied to analyze SEO as an element within the Framework.

The results show that certain websites' characteristics do have an effect on how well libraries' websites are ranked by search engines. Notably, the reputation of a library's website and the number of its search engine indexed webpages increase its ranking on SERPs as well as the findability of its digital content.

Most of the existing works on SEO have been confined to popular literature, outside of scholarly academic research in library and information science. Only few studies with a focus on libraries' application of SEO exist. No known study has applied an empirical approach to the examination of relevant libraries' website characteristics to determine their visibility performance on search engine result pages (SERPs). This study identified several website characteristics that can be optimized for higher SERP rankings. It also analyzed the impact of external links, as well as that of the number of indexed webpages by search engines on higher SERP rankings.

Social Media Optimization (SMO) offers guidelines by which libraries can design content for social shareability through social networking services (SNSs). The purpose of this paper is to introduce SMO and discuss its effects and benefits for libraries.

Researchers identified and applied five principles of SMO. Web analytics software provides data on web site traffic and user engagement before and after the application of SMO.

By intentionally applying a program of SMO, the library increased content shareability, increased user engagement, and built community.

Increasing use of SNSs may influence the study results, independent of SMO application. Limitations inherent to web analytics software may affect results. Further study could expand analysis beyond web analytics to include comments on SNS posts, SNS shares from library pages, and a qualitative analysis of user behaviors and attitudes regarding library web content and SNSs.

This research offers an intentional approach for libraries to optimize their online resources sharing through SNSs.

Previous research has examined the role of community building and social connectedness for SNS users, but none have discussed using SMO to encourage user engagement and interactivity through increased SNS traffic into library web pages.

The complex phenomenon of information overload (IO) is one of the pathologies in our present information environment, thus symbolically it signalizes the existence of a dark side of information. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the approaches on mitigating IO. Hence, it is an attempt to display the bright side.

Based on a literature review, the sources of IO are briefly presented, not forgetting about the role of information technology and the influence of the data-intensive world. The main attention is given to the possible ways of mitigating IO.

It is underlined that there are both technological and social approaches towards easing the symptoms of IO. While reducing IO by increasing search task delegation is a far away goal, solutions emerge when information is properly designed and tools of information architecture are applied to enable findability. A wider range of coping strategies is available when we interact with information. The imperative of being critical against information by exercising critical thinking and critical reading yields results if different, discipline-dependent literacies, first of all information literacy and data literacy are acquired and put into operation, slow principles are followed and personal information management (PIM) tools are applied.

The paper intends to be an add-on to the recent discussions and the evolving body of knowledge about the relationship between IO and information architecture, various literacies and PIM.

The implementation of enterprise content management (ECM) software applications has been a subject of extensive discussion. Although a number of ECM scholars have provided guidance on ECM implementation, there is a gap in how to assess benefits accruing from the implementation. One of the approaches of assessment is the use of maturity models. This paper aims to examine the utility of other ECM maturity model (ECM3) as an assessment tool.

The study was undertaken based on two related research questions, the first explored ECM3 assessment within a South African context and the second explored the utility of other maturity models for ECM implementation and lessons learnt to improve ECM3.

The results show that all the South African institutions assessed using ECM3 had a low level of maturity and there are a number of maturity models comparable to ECM3, and the global survey provides the closest parallel to the survey conducted in South Africa.

The study offers a unique discussion on the possible utility of ECM3 as a maturity model for assessing ECM implementation. This was done by comparing it with maturity models developed or used by records professionals and through assessing the results of two surveys, one conducted amongst South African institutions and another conducted by the Real Story Group.

The purposes of this paper are to deal with the questions: because search engines, social networks and app-stores are often referred to as gatekeepers to diverse information access, what is the evidence to substantiate these gatekeeper concerns, and to what extent are existing regulatory solutions to control gatekeeper control suitable at all to address new diversity concerns? It will also map the different gatekeeper concerns about media diversity as evidenced in existing research before the background of network gatekeeping theory critically analyses some of the currently discussed regulatory approaches and develops the contours of a more user-centric approach towards approaching gatekeeper control and media diversity.

This is a conceptual research work based on desk research into the relevant and communications science, economic and legal academic literature and the relevant laws and public policy documents. Based on the existing evidence as well as on applying the insights from network gatekeeping theory, this paper then critically reviews the existing legal/policy discourse and identifies elements for an alternative approach.

This paper finds that when looking at search engines, social networks and app stores, many concerns about the influence of the new information intermediaries on media diversity have not so much their source in the control over critical resources or access to information, as the traditional gatekeepers do. Instead, the real bottleneck is access to the user, and the way the relationship between social network, search engine or app platforms and users is given form. Based on this observation, the paper concludes that regulatory initiatives in this area would need to pay more attention to the dynamic relationship between gatekeeper and gated.

Because this is a conceptual piece based on desk-research, meaning that our assumptions and conclusions have not been validated by own empirical research. Also, although the authors have conducted to their best knowledge the literature review as broad and as concise as possible, seeing the breadth of the issue and the diversity of research outlets, it cannot be excluded that we have overlooked one or the other publication.

This paper makes a number of very concrete suggestions of how to approach potential challenges from the new information intermediaries to media diversity.

The societal implications of search engines, social networks and app stores for media diversity cannot be overestimated. And yet, it is the position of users, and their exposure to diverse information that is often neglected in the current dialogue. By drawing attention to the dynamic relationship between gatekeeper and gated, this paper highlights the importance of this relationship for diverse exposure to information.

While there is currently much discussion about the possible challenges from search engines, social networks and app-stores for media diversity, a comprehensive overview in the scholarly literature on the evidence that actually exists is still lacking. And while most of the regulatory solutions still depart from a more pre-networked, static understanding of “gatekeeper”, we develop our analysis on the basis for a more dynamic approach that takes into account the fluid and interactive relationship between the roles of “gatekeepers” and “gated”. Seen from this perspective, the regulatory solutions discussed so far appear in a very different light.

This paper seeks to present a usability evaluation of the web site of the Main Library of the St Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) to get users and site visitors to identify the major strengths and weaknesses of the site and to incorporate the results and participant feedback into a redesign that reflects users' intuitions rather than those of the site developers and librarians.

A combination of experimental and respondent research strategies was used to evaluate usability. These included survey questionnaires, focus groups, formal usability testing and card sort. In addition, both usability heuristics and ISO guidelines were used to assess effectiveness, learnability, usefulness and user satisfaction. Respondent strategies used a sample size of 529 participants for the self‐completion questionnaires and 16 participants in the focus group sessions. Experimental strategies combined observation of 21 individual participants and three groups of participants in the usability tests. In the card sort protocol nine individual participants and three groups of participants were observed.

The findings identified challenges in the site's information architecture (labelling and organisation) and in the interface design.

More ethnographic approaches are needed to elicit distinctive Caribbean user behaviours.

The study concludes that similar usability evaluations should be undertaken at the other UWI campus library web sites and that usability training should be incorporated into the culture of the library organisation. Critical next steps for the web designer are also suggested.

The paper presents issues of organisational change and the impact of technology on the relationship between systems and user services librarians.

The purpose of this paper is to advance the theoretical development of the content marketing concept and its integration into high-tech marketing theory, in entrepreneurial contexts and from a business model innovation perspective.

The paper provides a conceptual overview of content marketing and business model innovation concerning high-tech entrepreneurs.

The high-tech entrepreneurial content marketing (HIT-ECM) framework has five delineating elements with a small high-tech firm as the focal point: adapting content marketing in the business model, customizing content and customer profiling, organizational learning and experimenting with the business model, building strategic networks and content marketing and the small high-tech firm’s business model innovation. The HIT-ECM framework considers how high-tech entrepreneurs capitalize on their capabilities and use innovative marketing strategies to sell their high-tech solutions under unpredictable conditions and limited resources.

From a managerial perspective, HIT-ECM poses five questions managers should ask themselves when they adopt content marketing and integrate it into their existing business models: how can content create value, how novel content development activities reflect on innovating the business model, how will content development reflect on the business model structure, who is involved and what are the revenue streams of content development.

This is an original paper that presents the HIT-ECM framework for high-tech entrepreneurs to use content marketing and capture customer value through every aspect of their business operations, as well as updating and innovating their business models.

The purpose of this paper is to determine how information professionals in Scotland and in European national libraries perceive linked data (LD) as well as if and how they are implementing it.

The authors applied four data collection techniques: a literature review, semi-structured interviews (n=15), online resources analysis (n=26) and an online survey (n=113). They used constant comparative analysis to identify perceived benefits and challenges of LD implementation, reasons behind adoption or non-adoption of LD and the issues hindering its implementation in libraries.

Some projects demonstrate LD’s potential to augment the visibility and discoverability of library data, alongside with overcoming linguistic barriers, and supporting interoperability. However, a strong need remains to demonstrate the Semantic Web’s potential within libraries. Participants identified lack of expertise and lack of resources/time/staff as implementation barriers. Several other issues remain unsolved, such as licensing constraints, as well as difficulties with obtaining management buy-in for LD initiatives, even where open data are government-mandated.

Information professionals and vendors should collaborate to develop tools for implementation. Advocacy through disseminating and reviewing successful implementations can help to solve practical difficulties and to obtain management buy-in.

This is the first known study to present a multinational, comprehensive picture of library LD implementations and associated librarians’ perceptions of LD.

This study aims to present a comparative study of university library websites (in the USA) from the standpoint of “Google SEO” and “Accessibility”. Furthermore, correlation analysis between these two done.

By opting for a webometric approach, the present study analyzed university library websites in the USA. The Lighthouse add-on for the Google Chrome browser has been used as a data collection tool, by writing and implementing a computer program in Bash language automatically (May 2020). Data analysis tools used were “Libre-Office-Calc”, “SPSS22” and “Excel”.

In all 81 university library websites in the USA, Google search engine optimization (SEO) scores have been observed the amount higher than 60 (Total Score = 100). The accessibility rank obtained lay between 0.56 and 1 (Total Score = 1). A weak correlation relationship between “SEO score” and “accessibility rank” (P-value = 0.02, Spearman Correlation Coefficient = 0.345) was observed. This weak relationship can be explained due to the impact of several components affecting Google’s SEO score, one of them being having a high “accessibility rank”.

Given the increasing automation of library processes, SEO tools can help libraries in achieving their digital marketing goals.

Accurate measurement of the Google SEO score and accessibility rank for the university library websites (in the USA) were obtained by Lighthouse add-on for Google Chrome browser. Moreover, data extraction by the implementation of one program computer without the direct observation of human resources is the innovation of this study.

Qualitative researchers and information practitioners often investigate questions that probe the underlying mental models, nuanced perspectives, emotions and experiences of their target populations. The in-depth qualitative interview is a dominant method for such investigations and the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how incorporating hybrid card-sorting activities into interviews can enable deeper participant reflections and generate rich data sets to increase understanding.

Following a review of relevant literature, the case illustration presented is a grounded theory study into the student-researcher information experience with personal academic information management. This study uses hybrid card sorting within in-depth, semi-structured interviews, a unique adaptation that extends multi-disciplinary awareness of the benefits of card-sort exercises for qualitative research.

Emerging from diverse fields, ranging from computer science, engineering, psychology and human–computer interaction, card sorting seeks to illuminate how participants understand and organise concepts. The case illustration draws largely on methods used in interaction design and information architecture. Using either open or fixed designs, or hybrid variations, card-sort activities can make abstract concepts more tangible for participants, offering investigators a new approach to interview questions with the aid of this interactive, object-based technique.

Opening with a comprehensive review of card-sort studies, the authors present an information experience case illustration that demonstrates the rich data generated by hybrid card sorting within qualitative interviews, or interactive interviews. This is followed by discussion of the types of research questions that may benefit from this original method.