Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Mixed Methods Not Mixed Messages: Improving Libguides With Student Usability Data, Nora Almeida, Junior R. Tidal

Publications and Research

This presentation describes a project to improve LibGuides version 2 research guides at the City Tech Library and to understand student design and learning modality preferences. It includes findings from a mixed methods usability study and illustrates how this data translates into executable design principles.

What’S Mine Is Yourls, Junior R. Tidal, Kimberly R. Abrams

Publications and Research

Hyperlink management is critical to website functionality because a site with dead links is not fully operable for the end user. In educational institutions, links used for marketing, course materials, library resources, social media, and other uses can be laborious to maintain in a consistent fashion. Often links are long and unreadable. In order to streamline link maintenance and improve readability for end users, an open source short link manager called YOURLS was implemented at an academic library. In contrast to proprietary shortening services like bit.ly and ow.ly, YOURLS also operates as a link database manager. Long URLs are shortened …

Piwik, Junior R. Tidal

Publications and Research

Piwik is an open-source web analytics tool that can be used to track websites. This presentation outlines how to install and use Piwik for collecting data on library websites. It also examines privacy issues when using analytics tools.

Reference Mode Preferences Of Community College And Four-Year College Students, John Carey, Ajatshatru Pathak

Publications and Research

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the reference service mode preferences of community college (two-year) students and four-year college students.

Methods: The researchers administered a paper-based, face-to-face questionnaire at two institutions within the City University of New York system: Hunter College, a senior college, and Queensborough Community College, a two-year institution. During the summer of 2015, the researchers surveyed 79 participants, asking them to identify their most and least preferred medium for accessing library reference services.

Results: Nearly 75% of respondents expressed a preference for face-to-face reference, while only about 18% preferred remote reference services (online chat, …