Editorial

Citation

Ashcroft, L. (2008), "Editorial", New Library World, Vol. 109 No. 1/2. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.2008.072109aaa.001

Editorial

The latest statistics from Sconul (Society of College, National & University Libraries) show an increased use of online services, which offsets the decline in the number of library visits by students (a 22 per cent reduction over the last ten years). However, the wider availability of networked information and increasing use of the internet results in libraries delivering services outside the building, and these wide-ranging digital services from higher education libraries meet the needs of increasingly diverse students (www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/pubs/publications.html). The article by Sadeh discusses the need for a new kind of interface for searching and obtaining library materials designed around user needs and expectations derived from their experiences of the internet. She uses the example of the Primo^® system from Ex Libris as a solution for the discovery and delivery of library collections. This paper is supported by appropriate screen shots and confirms the virtues of a Google-like interface.

A report by the National Audit Office, Government on the Internet: Progress in Delivering Information and Services Online (www.nao.org.uk/pn/06-07/0607529.htm), into the state of government web sites finds that their quality has improved only slightly since 2001. Apparently, while government sites cost £208 million per year, nearly 25 per cent of departments do not know who uses their sites or their cost. The article from Aitta, Kaleva and Kortelainen involves the premise that library web sites should be user-friendly for all citizens. They present usability heuristics for the evaluation of public library web services. They comment that heuristic evaluation is a usability method that is applied in an early phase of web site design, but which can also be applied to a system in use. It can also be a starting point for usability evaluation that can be continued with other methods.

In 2005, CyMAL: Museums, Libraires and Archives Wales published @ Your Library: A Strategic Development Programme for Libraries 2005-2007. A main element of this was the improvement of marketing of public libraries and involving academic libraries in this. A marketing professional was appointed to manage the first national marketing campaign for libraries in Wales – “Libraries – Something to Shout About”, involving celebrity endorsement. The campaign saw an increase in the level of national and local media coverage about libraries, which provided the public with a much more accurate picture of the services of modern libraries. In their article, Baltes and Leibing consider the principles of “guerilla marketing” and whether this marketing approach is suitable for information services. They provide examples of “guerilla marketing” (unconventional marketing strategies which aim to achieve significant effects with a fraction of the budget of traditional marketing campaigns) in the commercial world and suggest how this might work for information services.

The national Six Books Challenge in the UK is run by TRA (the Reading Agency) in association with the Costa Book Awards, and is part of the Vital Link programme for libraries and literacy. From January to May each year, emergent readers (adult literacy learners) will be invited to read six books, supported by reading activities, incentives, free Costa coffee cards and the chance of winning a trip to London, offered by Costa Book Awards. The challenge was successfully piloted and run by all 15 libraries in Yorkshire and Humber last year (www.readingagency.org.uk). Balling, Henrichsen and Skouvig look at a new form for reading groups – digital reading groups initiated by libraries. They use the experiences connected with a Danish literature promotion project, in which digital reading groups were launched, to discuss the stereotype of the librarian. They show how public libraries can use literature promotion on the internet not only to reach new users but also to change the librarian stereotype.

Depot, a national repository open to all UK researchers, was launched at JISC’s digital repositories conference. Depot will also direct authors to an institutional repository where one exists. Professor Drummond Bone said “the development of repositories should be led by the needs of users, rather than technicians, and required partnership with librarians, IT services, academic departments, senior managers and others” (http://depot.edina.ac.uk). Turk’s article looks at the citation impact of LIS open access journals. This literature review based article discusses the methodology for data collection for citations counts. Focus is placed on citation impact as a citation-based measure while acknowledging that it is not the only measure of citation analysis.

The Public Sector Web Management Group is a new organization aiming to fill a perceived gap in support for public sector web managers, which “seeks to add value”. The group is planning its first conference for which topics include “What is the perfect council web site” and “choosing a suitable content management system” (www.pswmg.org.uk). A different type of support mechanism is the topic of the article by Moore et al. They provide an overview of mentoring and its benefits, even in an informal context. They include mentoring for librarians of colour and cross-race mentoring and provide examples of best practices.

Linda Ashcroft