Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Web 2.0 In Libraries: Assessing New Services, Jean Vollrath

The Southeastern Librarian

Each morning’s work at the Center for Creative Leadership library involves scanning the internet news sources for stories that affect company clients, particularly new business trends and innovations. Two such trends are Web 2.0 and the idea of “third place.” The term “third place” refers to an open, neutral, creative haven for social interaction and collaboration, such as a library or coffee shop. Web 2.0 refers to those new internet technologies that can be used to create virtual “third place” communities through synchronous and asynchronous communication. So it was not surprising to see a new column in the January 2007 …

Hbcu (Historically Black Colleges And Universities) Library Alliance Launches Redesigned Website

The Southeastern Librarian

The HBCU Library Alliance announced the launch of its redesigned website, found at http://www.hbculibraries.org.

The Local Nature Of Digital Reference, Teresa U. Berry, Margaret M. Casado, Lana Dixon

The Southeastern Librarian

In response to the extensive availability of digital library resources and the rising number of remote users, many libraries now offer digital reference services through e-mail and chat. The growing use of interactive chat software with its real time interactive capability has prompted librarians to consider collaborative ways in which to offer this service. A concern expressed frequently in informal discussions of such collaborations is how difficult it would be for the staff at one library to answer questions for another, considering that many questions tend to be “local”. Intrigued by the perception of “local,” librarians at the University of …

The Great Leveler: Free Business Resources On The World Wide Web, Jason Martin

The Southeastern Librarian

The Internet is full of reliable sources that are filled with a wealth of business information. Some of these sites are fee-based with subscription prices that are much lower than those of the large commercial databases. Unfortunately, only a single subscriber may use most of those fee-based sites. That means the librarian must turn to sites that are free to the general public. Many of these free sites rival fee-based services for quality and quantity of information.

Resources And Services For Remote Access: A Content Analysis Of Alabama’S Public Four-Year University Library Web Sites, Hanrong Wang, William Hubbard

The Southeastern Librarian

This study examines the web sites of the sixteen Alabama public senior colleges and universities in order to identify the principle characteristics and current trends in web-based services. Because web sites are evolving constantly, the study intends to make a static comparison of web-based resources and services provided by those libraries at a fixed point in time. Besides identifying trends in library web sites, this study will serve as a benchmark for comparisons of future web-based developments and for improving existing services and resources in the subject libraries.

Interface-Lift: The Houston Cole Library's Web Page Redesign Project, John-Bauer Graham, Jodi Poe, Kimberly Weatherford

The Southeastern Librarian

A discussion of the redesign of the web site for the Houston Cole Library at Jacksonville State University. Faculty and student input were taken and the results used to shape the direction of the project.

Public Access To Legal Resources On The Internet, Alice M. Mccanless

The Southeastern Librarian

In the not so distant past, before the Internet, doing legal research necessitated access to either a substantial law collection or one of the expensive legal databases, Lexis-Nexis or Westlaw. That limited legal reference to law librarians, some special librarians and reference librarians at large university or public libraries. The Internet has changed all of that, giving any library with an Internet connection access to a wealth of current law, especially at the state and federal level.

Based on a presentation at the Joint Conference of the Georgia Council of Media Organizations and Southeastern Library Association on October 12, 2000.

Testing The Design Of A Library Information Gateway, W. Bede Mitchell, Laura Davidson, Virginia Branch, Lynne Lysiak

The Southeastern Librarian

In autumn of 1999, the library World Wide Websites at Appalachian State University and Georgia Southern University had been in place for more than a year, and many library users reported that certain aspects of the sites’ designs were confusing. In order to alleviate the confusion, librarians from the two universities decided to redesign the sites by determining the greatest sources of confusion. To do this, we studied how patrons used the web sites by way of user-centered usability testing.