Recommendations for Benchmarking Web Site Usage among Academic Libraries

Abstract

The Web sites that academic libraries are developing for their research communities represent an important new aspect of information management. Comparative statistical analysis of Web site usage among similar institutions would improve librarians’ ability to evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts. A centralized voluntary reporting structure for Web server usage statistics, coordinated by the Association of Research Libraries’ (ARL’s) Office of Statistics, would provide a significant service to academic librarians. Factors to consider in designing such a benchmarking program are discussed, based on a pilot study of Web site usage statistics from fourteen science and technology libraries.

Benchmarking Reference Desk Service in Academic Health Science Libraries: A Preliminary Survey

“…This should improve our ability to make comparisons and make us more con fident in their results. However, as an al ternative, if a standard instrument was used by different libraries on an ongoing basis and the results made available to other institutions (as has been suggested for Web site statistics 24 ), an individual li brary could use the previously collected results for benchmarking.…”

“…8,9 Recently, several reports of benchmarking studies in academic libraries have been published that look at service measurements such as wait times and Web site usage. [10][11][12] Suzanne H. Angel and Leslie G. Mackler described a benchmarking survey of hospital libraries that examined a range of library services, including reference performance. 13 How ever, the libraries that Angel and Mackler studied did not use a standardized means of determining patron satisfaction, so it is unclear how comparable their results were.…”

Academic Library Mission Statements, Web Sites, and Communicating Purpose

“…In the early days of library web sites, Hightower, Shih, and Tilghman (1998) determined that, even in its infancy, the academic library web page was adopting a basic hierarchy of content: (1) the homepage;…”

Lietuvos Akademinių Bibliotekų Elektroninių Katalogų Naudotojai

“…Stevenas J. Turneris aprašo galimus bibliotekų siekinius ir pateikia pavyzdžių, kaip galima ne komercinės paskirties svetainę emuliuoti į el. komercinę svetainę, kuriai iš prigimties būdingi investicijų grąžos siekiniai 19 .…”