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Unit 11: Library Associations: India, UK and USA
Notes
Task List the various divisions of the American Library Association.
Self Assessment
State whether the following statements are true or false:
11. CILIP is the leading professional body for librarians, information specialists, and
knowledge managers in the USA.
12. CILIP hosts a conference every two years called Umbrella.
13. SLA was founded in 1919 in the United States.
14. The Library Association (LA-UK) was founded in 1877 with its headquarters in London.
15. ASLIB regards itself as a resource for management.
Case Study Establishing Content Awareness Evaluation Criteria
for Library Websites
he recent years have seen the emergence of websites as an ideal medium through
which knowledge and information can be disseminated very efficiently to every
Tnook and corner of the world. Libraries also use their websites for disseminating
information among users and to popularize their services. Content richness of library websites
depends upon its collection, services, facilities, administrative support and updating policy
etc. These features are collectively referred as content awareness of library websites. Content
awareness indicates qualitative and quantitative aspects of information provided on the
library websites. Evaluating library websites through content awareness is one of the methods
for measuring usefulness of websites. In this case study, an empirical approach is used for
the development of content awareness criteria of academic library websites.
The web appearance of academic library websites of India has been searched during June,
2009 and found that a few of the central universities and institutes of national importance
do not have separate library websites. It is found that URL of Nagaland University Library
website is not extractable due to use of JavaScript in Web page designing, though evaluative
study of the Nagaland University Library website has been conducted. Except University
of Delhi and University of Hyderabad, none of the central universities libraries have
separate Websites.
The Web offers libraries the possibility to become disseminators of information through
websites. The most effective library website appears to be the one that has a clear sense of
purpose as well as a clear sense of users’ needs. Therefore, an important aspect of planning
and maintaining a website is to identify the likely users and to review their needs. Rozic-
Hristovski, Todorovski and Hristovski reported about developing a library website and
included a guide to library services and resources in 1997. In the early 1990s, Nielsen and
Rubin pioneered the testing of websites to determine whether websites met users’ needs.
They adapted usability engineering techniques developed for computer software design
and applied them to Web design.
Contd....
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