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1 – 10 of over 13000Sarah Robbins, Debra Engel and James Bierman
The University of Oklahoma Libraries (UL) has created content management tools located on the staff intranet. These tools allow library personnel to control the content on the web…
Abstract
Purpose
The University of Oklahoma Libraries (UL) has created content management tools located on the staff intranet. These tools allow library personnel to control the content on the web site while the library systems office maintains site navigation and consistent site design. These tools have been in place for approximately three years, but this study is the first formal evaluation of these systems.
Design/methodology/approach
To evaluate usage of the content management tools in place at UL, the authors surveyed all levels of library personnel to see how they utilize the library intranet to manage web site content. The authors examined both self‐reported usage of the staff intranet and data collected from the systems office about actual usage.
Findings
This study provides insight on the intended use of content management systems versus the actual usage of these systems.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should focus on how CMS is being used by regular users of the systems rather than usage of the system as a whole. Survey results were skewed by including student workers who seldom have reason to use the intranet or CMS tools within the scope of their positions.
Practical implications
Explores the issues surrounding the use of the intranet as a tool for communication and managing content on a public web site. Tools must be properly marketed if they are to be fully utilized.
Originality/value
This paper will benefit those in organizations that are considering locally developing content management tools or that are beginning to evaluate usage of their staff intranet.
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Umut Al, Güleda Dogan, Irem Soydal and Zehra Taskin
In this paper, the Libraries for Everyone Project and the studies carried out within the scope of the project are presented; the role of libraries as learning environments is…
Abstract
Purpose
In this paper, the Libraries for Everyone Project and the studies carried out within the scope of the project are presented; the role of libraries as learning environments is discussed; and the data obtained from the library usage research/survey are shared. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The research includes the findings of a questionnaire study that was applied in May, 2017 to 4,566 respondents from 147 libraries participating in the project. The population is represented with a 99% confidence level and a sampling error of 0.02. The sample size was decided based on the number of registered members in the libraries.
Findings
Municipal libraries have potential to be used as learning environments.
Originality/value
The usage survey reported in the study is the most comprehensive usage study on municipal libraries so far in terms of the number of participants. The Libraries for Everyone Project is the most extensive project implemented at municipal libraries in Turkey.
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Umut Al, Pablo Andrade Blanco, Marcel Chiranov, Lina Maria Cruz Silva, Luba Nikolaeva Devetakova, Yulianto Dewata, Ieva Dryžaite, Fiona Farquharson, Maciej Kochanowicz, Tetiana Liubyva, Andrea López Naranjo, Quynh Truc Phan, Rocky Ralebipi-Simela, Irem Soydal, David Streatfield, Resego Taolo, Tâm Thị Thanh Trần and Yuliya Tkachuk
The purpose of this paper is to report on performance measurement and impact assessment progress made in 14 countries as part of the Global Libraries initiative, starting with the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report on performance measurement and impact assessment progress made in 14 countries as part of the Global Libraries initiative, starting with the early country grants in Mexico and Chile. For the mature grants in Bulgaria, Botswana, Poland, Romania, Ukraine and Viet Nam which were recently completed or are approaching completion, the nature of the country program is outlined, before the impact assessment work is described and some recent results and conclusions are reported. A similar approach is adopted with pilot and new grants in Colombia, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey and Lithuania.
Design/methodology/approach
The country reports are presented as a series of case studies, in some cases supplementing those in an earlier special issue of this journal.
Findings
Where appropriate, recent country-specific survey findings are reported.
Practical implications
This paper shares Global Libraries IPA learning at country level with people in other countries who may be contemplating public library evaluation at regional, national or local level or who are interested in performance measurement and impact evaluation.
Originality/value
These cases studies reflect concentrated impact assessment and performance measurement work at country level across a range of countries over more than 12 years.
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The nursing journals titles needed to support Project 2000 were considered. In order to reflect the structure of nursing literature as a whole, a citation count from the Citation…
Abstract
The nursing journals titles needed to support Project 2000 were considered. In order to reflect the structure of nursing literature as a whole, a citation count from the Citation index for 1990 was undertaken. In order to rank journals in each of the 4 branches of Project 2000, an analysis of the citations in a leading journal representing each branch was undertaken. To reflect student usage a survey of photocopier use and citation in student bibliographies was undertaken. In order to reflect what titles the library ought to have, a questionnaire survey of tutors was undertaken. The ranking of titles in the Citation index was tested for correlation with the ranks obtained from student use and tutor recommendation and the correlation between student use and tutor recommendation was drawn. Finally, a scheme for combining the rankings of journal titles obtained by the methods above was devised in order to produce an overall ranking of the principal titles.
Rabia Ramlogan and Lucy A. Tedd
The purpose of this research is to gather some empirical, baseline information on the use/non‐use of selected, subscribed electronic information services (EIS) among full time…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to gather some empirical, baseline information on the use/non‐use of selected, subscribed electronic information services (EIS) among full time Year Three undergraduates at the St. Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies, in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago.
Design/methodology/approach
The study's research design involved a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach: a user survey comprising self‐administered, semi‐structured questionnaires and face‐to‐face semi‐structured interviews.
Findings
Over half of the total respondents had not accessed any of the EIS. Lack of awareness of the services' availability was revealed as the overriding factor for non‐use. It is concluded that undergraduates make infrequent or no use at all of certain EIS largely from lack of awareness.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the lack of an available sampling frame and data protection regulations, the study was unable to obtain a probabilistic sample.
Practical implications
The study's findings are consistent with the results from information behaviour studies in the UK that underline the critical role of academic staff in promoting the use of subscribed EIS.
Originality/value
There are a number of studies on the use of EIS, but this is the first of its kind within the English‐speaking Caribbean.
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The following annotated bibliography of materials on orienting users to the library and on instructing them in the use of reference and other resources covers publications from…
Abstract
The following annotated bibliography of materials on orienting users to the library and on instructing them in the use of reference and other resources covers publications from 1980. Several items from 1979 were included because information about them had not been available in time for the 1980 listing. Some entries were not annotated because the compiler was unable to secure a copy of the item.
A fashionable cant in education is that teachers are not so much concerned with teaching as with learning. This belief emerged mainly as a result of the work of new thinkers in…
Abstract
A fashionable cant in education is that teachers are not so much concerned with teaching as with learning. This belief emerged mainly as a result of the work of new thinkers in the 1960's who directed attention to the importance of the learner in the learning process and who heightened an awareness of knowledge as a variable rather than as a given. The resulting re‐appraisal of teaching methods focussed on learning as “acts of cognition, not transferrals of information”, with the teacher as a facilitator.
Brinley Franklin and Terry Plum
An examination of the methodology and results from patron use surveys of networked electronic services at four geographically disparate academic health science libraries in the…
Abstract
An examination of the methodology and results from patron use surveys of networked electronic services at four geographically disparate academic health science libraries in the USA between 1999 and 2002. The principal fields of inquiry include demographic differences between in‐house library users as compared to remote library users by status of user; users’ purposes for accessing electronic services; how the purpose of use differs between traditional, in‐person, library services; and differences in usage of electronic resources based upon the location of users. The results of this study should help guide service decisions in academic health sciences libraries.
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Terry Plum, Brinley Franklin, Martha Kyrillidou, Gary Roebuck and MaShana Davis
As libraries are developing a larger Web presence, issues regarding the utility, accessibility, and impact of the usage of their networked resources and services are gaining…
Abstract
Purpose
As libraries are developing a larger Web presence, issues regarding the utility, accessibility, and impact of the usage of their networked resources and services are gaining critical importance. The need to assess systematically the networked electronic services and resources is great as increasing amounts of financial resources are dedicated to the Web presence of libraries. This paper aims to address this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
This project proposes to measure the impact of networked electronic services, building on MINES for Libraries®, in a scalable way across libraries and consortia to enhance digital library service quality and impact on learning by enabling the future allocation of resources to areas of user‐identified need. Short, standardized web surveys are placed at the point‐of‐use of networked electronic resources and services through a network assessment infrastructure that uses contemporary mechanisms of authentication and access, such as EZproxy, openURL, Shibboleth, federated searching and others as modules to interface with ARL's StatsQUAL®. A valid and reliable sampling method is proposed.
Findings
Point‐of‐use web surveys hold considerable promise as key tools in the assessment toolkit libraries may deploy to improve the research, teaching, and learning outcomes of their users.
Practical implications
This project enhances and deepens the information gained from vendor‐supplied data.
Originality/value
The developments described will make it easier for libraries to assess the usage of networked electronic resources and services.
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Rachel Cheng, Steve Bischof and Alan J. Nathanson
This article details the experience of Wesleyan University Library in Middletown, CT, in the collection, management and assessment of library usage statistics to improve current…
Abstract
This article details the experience of Wesleyan University Library in Middletown, CT, in the collection, management and assessment of library usage statistics to improve current library collections and services and plan for future changes in light of rapid changes in technology. Topics discussed include index and database usage statistics, data from faculty and student surveys and how such data led to service changes, reference hours (including digital reference), electronic bibliographies, liaison programs, and journal circulation data. The conclusion offers several suggestions for other libraries who wish to begin a statistical measurement program.
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