Abstract
The paper discusses the findings of a study that analyze the content and design of university library websites of Sri Lanka and highlights the points that need to be addressed in order to enhance the quality of websites. Besides, this paper presents a simplified version of an evaluative instrument that was developed by the author. Websites of university libraries of Sri Lanka were assessed in terms of both quantitative and qualitative web presence. A 17-itemed evaluative instrument was used to measure the qualitative web presence. The rating of the websites was carried out during the first week of April 2013. Findings revealed that the quantitative web presence of Sri Lankan university libraries is at a quite commendable level. All 3 parameters - availability of websites, size of sites, location of the link to the library site in the parent institution’s website - that measured the quantitative web presence were found to be in high level. Besides, out of the two parameters - content richness and design accuracy – that measured qualitative web presence, the content richness level of websites was found to be at a commendable status. However, majority of websites reported low scores when measured in terms of design accuracy. The evaluative instrument presented in this paper would be useful for library professionals in evaluating the current status of the library websites for institutional or research purposes. The evaluative instrument presented in this paper is an original tool and the results generated based on the tool have added a new set of empirical data to the body of literature. Journal of the University Librarians Association, Sri Lanka, Vol. 17, Issue 1, January 2013, Page 34-57 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jula.v17i1.6643
Highlights
The trend of building up libraries in the cyberspace is growing fast exploring new grounds and adding new features
Manual inspection and data generated by automatic web tools that were described in the section 4.3.1, were used to rank the measured parameters. 4.2 Research Instruments The following research instruments were used for data collection during this study. 4.2.1 Evaluative Instrument An evaluative instrument, which consists of 10 content elements and 7 design features, was used as the benchmarking tool of assessing library websites
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) level A, which was taken into consideration in determining the web accessibility of the sites in the present study, denotes the requirements that MUST be satisfied in order to facilitate accessing the web content for disabled users
Summary
The trend of building up libraries in the cyberspace is growing fast exploring new grounds and adding new features. Poll, 2007; Astani & Elhindi, 2008; Chen, Germain & Yang, 2009; Manuel & Walton, 2010; Kaba, 2011; Aharony, 2012; Madhusudhan & Nagabhushanam, 2012; Vasishta, 2013) that evaluate the library websites in different perspectives is a good indication of the enthusiasm of the librarians around the world towards this fascinating branch of the librarianship. Librarians need to be very careful of what they publish in their websites. Designing and maintaining a site adhering to international standards needs certain commitments from the part of the librarians. A properly planned maintenance schedule and a periodical redesigning scheme may simplify the process of maintaining a user-centred website
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