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With its intuitive interface and open-source development method, the WordPress web platform has emerged as a uniquely flexible content management system (CMS) with many library-related applications. In this book Jones and Farrington, two web designer/librarians, explore the variety of ways libraries are implementing WordPress as a CMS, from simple \"\"out-of-the-box\"\" websites to large sites with many custom features. Emphasising a library-specific perspective, the authors Offer a brief history of WordPress, reviewing its genesis and sketching in some possible future directions Analyse the software's strengths and weaknesses, spotlighting its advantages over other existing web publishing platforms as well as discussing the limitations libraries have encountered Present a variety of case studies, offering first-hand examples which detail why WordPress was selected, methods of implementation and degree of customisation, feedback from users, and reflections on usability Discuss essential plug-ins, themes, and other specialised applications for library sites This useful book shows how scores of libraries have used WordPress to create library websites that are both user friendly and easy to maintain.

The creation of massive digital libraries is your existential crisis. After all, some say they may lead to the demise of traditional libraries. Recognizing libraries as a \"big idea\" that has been implemented in many ways over thousands of years, author Andrew Weiss is not so gloomy. He explores the question of how libraries will adapt, applying and using massive digital libraries. Using the authors criteria for a massive digital libraries, you'll have a firm understanding of their characteristics. You'll track the path of Google Books and the early proponents of the Very Large Digital Library as it met the protests of the scholarly communication community. You'll learn about library practices of the massive digital libraries and how traditional libraries are developing applications, with coverage such as: comparing the collection development approaches of Google Books and Hathi Trust Appplications, such as MDL for research in digital humanities, catalog integration through the Google Book API, Culturenomics and the Google Ngram viewer. 4 case studies of library projects with Google Books

Purpose – This paper aims to analyse various aspects of an academic social network: the profile of users, the reasons for its use, its perceived benefits and the use of other social media for scholarly purposes. Design/methodology/approach – The authors examined the profiles of the users of an academic social network. The users were affiliated with 12 universities. The following were recorded for each user: sex, the number of documents uploaded, the number of followers, and the number of people being followed. In addition, a survey was sent to the individuals who had an email address in their profile. Findings – Half of the users of the social network were academics and a third were PhD students. Social sciences scholars accounted for nearly half of all users. Academics used the service to get in touch with other scholars, disseminate research results and follow other scholars. Other widely employed social media included citation indexes, document creation, edition and sharing tools and communication tools. Users complained about the lack of support for the utilisation of these tools. Research limitations/implications – The results are based on a single case study. Originality/value – This study provides new insights on the impact of social media in academic contexts by analysing the user profiles and benefits of a social network service that is specifically targeted at the academic community.

In November 2019, Binghamton University Libraries initiated a website redesign project. Our goal was to create a user-centered, data-informed website with refreshed content and upgraded functionality. Originally, our redesign plan included in-person card-sorting activities, focus groups, and usability studies, but when the Libraries went remote in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to quickly reassess and adapt our processes and workflows. In this article, we will discuss how we completed this significant project remotely by relying on effective project management, communication, teamwork, and flexibility.

Google Scholar (GS), a commonly used web-based academic search engine, catalogues between 2 and 100 million records of both academic and grey literature (articles not formally published by commercial academic publishers). Google Scholar collates results from across the internet and is free to use. As a result it has received considerable attention as a method for searching for literature, particularly in searches for grey literature, as required by systematic reviews. The reliance on GS as a standalone resource has been greatly debated, however, and its efficacy in grey literature searching has not yet been investigated. Using systematic review case studies from environmental science, we investigated the utility of GS in systematic reviews and in searches for grey literature. Our findings show that GS results contain moderate amounts of grey literature, with the majority found on average at page 80. We also found that, when searched for specifically, the majority of literature identified using Web of Science was also found using GS. However, our findings showed moderate/poor overlap in results when similar search strings were used in Web of Science and GS (10-67%), and that GS missed some important literature in five of six case studies. Furthermore, a general GS search failed to find any grey literature from a case study that involved manual searching of organisations' websites. If used in systematic reviews for grey literature, we recommend that searches of article titles focus on the first 200 to 300 results. We conclude that whilst Google Scholar can find much grey literature and specific, known studies, it should not be used alone for systematic review searches. Rather, it forms a powerful addition to other traditional search methods. In addition, we advocate the use of tools to transparently document and catalogue GS search results to maintain high levels of transparency and the ability to be updated, critical to systematic reviews.

The University Library at California State University, Stanislaus is not only undergoing a library building renovation, but a website redesign as well. The library conducted a user-centered usability study to collect data in order to best lead the library website “renovation.” A prototype was created to assess an audience-based navigation design, homepage content framework, and heading terminology. The usability study consisted of 38 student participants. It was determined that a topic-based navigation design will be implemented instead of an audience-based navigation, a search-all search box will be integrated, and the headings and menu links will be modified to avoid ambiguous library terminology. Further research on different navigation and content designs, and usability design approaches, will be explored for future studies.

Evaluates the usability of the website of Central Science Library (CSL), University of Delhi. Considers the six usability attributes of usefulness, efficiency, effectiveness, learnability, satisfaction and accessibility. Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.

Scientific software is a fundamental player in modern science, participating in all stages of scientific knowledge production. Software occasionally supports the development of trivial tasks, while at other instances it determines procedures, methods, protocols, results, or conclusions related with the scientific work. The growing relevance of scientific software as a research product with value of its own has triggered the development of quantitative science studies of scientific software. The main objective of this study is to illustrate a link-based webometric approach to characterize the online mentions to scientific software across different analytical frameworks. To do this, the bibliometric software VOSviewer is used as a case study. Considering VOSviewer’s official website as a baseline, online mentions to this website were counted in three different analytical frameworks: academic literature via Google Scholar (988 mentioning publications), webpages via Majestic (1,330 mentioning websites), and tweets via Twitter (267 mentioning tweets). Google scholar mentions shows how VOSviewer is used as a research resource, whilst mentions in webpages and tweets show the interest on VOSviewer’s website from an informational and a conversational point of view. Results evidence that URL mentions can be used to gather all sorts of online impacts related to non-traditional research objects, like software, thus expanding the analytical scientometric toolset by incorporating a novel digital dimension.

In spring 2015, the Cal Poly Pomona University Library conducted usability testing with ten student testers to establish recommendations and guide the migration process from LibGuides version 1 to version 2. This case study describes the results of the testing as well as raises additional questions regarding the general effectiveness of LibGuides, especially when students rely heavily on search to find library resources.

Assesses the structural effectiveness of academic library websites in Nigeria. Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.