Evaluating an Online Library Website - Report Example

Evaluating an Online Library Website Website to be evaluated: http www.netlibrary.com Owned by OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (www.oclc.org). Find NetLibrary eContent solutions for your library Tools & resources for NetLibrary publisher partners Learn more about who we are and what we do Log In Username: Username is required. Password: Password is required. Lost Password? Login Information Athens Users, log in here. Enter Ticket Code NetLibrary is a division of OCLC Online Computer Library Center. This website is an on-line library that offers electronic resources such as eJournals, eBooks and eAudiobooks. These may be accessed through on-line public libraries or privately by creating a personal account. This site likewise sells books. This website caters to students (college and graduate level) and professionals (Educators, Scientists, Historians, Anthropologists, Sociologists, etc.)doing research on a variety of subjects. The wide array of titles in eAudiobook format also hopes to attract an older market who may need alternative means of enjoying reading material. Library book collectors in pursuit of a more complete collection will also be drawn to this site. Customers from all over the world will find a lot of multi-cultural material on this site that they can relate to. It is a brave attempt to temporarily unite the world online. Reader’s Experience at the Website Upon arrival at the website, I was at a lost. The minimalist design made me think it was not finished loading. It was not overstimulating as most websites I have surfed. I was able to explore the site on the surface, but to thoroughly check out the resources, I had to create an account. At first, I was not impressed by the short list of collections (Browse Collections), and when I saw the “Services and Solutions” section, I knew that the website owners were busy upgrading their services. Accessing the library list was easy, complete with all the bibliographic details of each book. Apparently, this site also sells books. The online demo was likewise impressive. It was user-friendly even for internet greenhorns, as it guides the user step by step to the direction he wants. Merely listening to the online demo makes me very much familiar with how the website works. Evaluation of the Website using Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics Visibility of system status Services & Solutions New Chinese-language Magazine, Journal and Image Databases In partnership with Airiti, Inc., NetLibrary now offers three new academic journal and image databases with more than 338,000 fully-searchable articles and thousands of high-quality images from the National Palace Museum in Taipei. More than 30 New Subject Sets Now Available Just getting started with NetLibrary? Want to grow your collection? Be sure to check out our new subject sets, covering key topics including business, nursing, engineering, career development, information technology and much more. This information on what is currently available immediately helps users to choose from a menu what he is searching for. Match between system and the real world The site seems to be very user-friendly. As long as the user is adept at surfing the internet and knowledgeable about eContent and eAudiobooks. It is hospitable to different nationalities, having a variety of languages to choose from to help even non-English speakers. It has choices of Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai languages for Interface Language. User control and freedom Upon arriving at the search results page, user will have difficulty going back to previous page in case he wants change to search a different format. Search button within the search results page is small, and it makes user feel as if he is stuck with the results and is not free enough to search another topic immediately. The old reliable Windows “Back” button is mostly used to navigate user back to previous pages. Consistency and standards Basic Search and Advanced search mean different things. For a beginning user, he would expect a more relevant search for his chosen topic when he clicks on repeat the search without excluding any results. The results for this is not consistently more relevant. At times, the additional items displayed are more relevant to the original topic searched for and at other times, it is totally off-tangent. Using the Advanced search narrows down the search to more related items, but it also shows how limited the on-line library’s collection can be when it does not come up with any matching item. Error prevention The built in spell checker immediately recognizes misspelled words for ambiguous terms and confirms with the user if what he means in the search is the corrected-spelled word. Recognition rather than recall The website has features that eases user’s memory by remembering details of past actions for easy retrieval later. An example is displaying previously searched items in case the user wants to go back to explore the items further. Flexibility and efficiency of use The Net library customizes the user’s search preferences and creates bookmarks for easy access. His collections are likewise customized that when he clicks on a choice of resource, it reminds the user if it is already included in his collection or not. Aesthetic and minimalist design Design is simple, no-nonsense and uncluttered. Web design is not over-stimulating, and first-time visitors may not find it attractive enough, being used to too much detail in other websites. Every icon displayed has a purpose. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors Perennial display of help button helps user when he gets in a fix. The online demo is also very useful, and the human voice that comes with it helps to assure user that using the website is not as difficult as it seems. Help and documentation Help topics seem to anticipate usual problems that may be encountered by the user. The novelty of accessing and downloading eResources such as eAudiobooks needs a more concrete step-by-step process to be followed by the user. This is complemented by the topics on the Online Demo. Comparison of Online-Library Use with Traditional Library Technological advances have been designed to bring about conveniences. Research today is so much easier because information on most about anything is within reach with the click of a button. Online-Libraries may be viewed as heaven-sent by most students who need to come up with a number of research papers in compliance to course requirements. These online libraries have access to most journal publications, relevant articles written in a diversity of perspectives, and resource books formatted as electronic books. Students now have the luxury of researching in the privacy of their homes any time of the day or night as long as they own a computer with internet access. The use of traditional libraries, however overshadowed by online library use, should not be banished to oblivion. Nothing still beats searching for authors and titles (now, mostly computerized in libraries) in catalogues and using bibliographic information to locate the desired reference. Actual handling of the book makes it a more fulfilling experience, as turning each page makes the reader one with the author who originally created his work on actual paper and ink. This humanizes the research experience. The privilege of borrowing books and using it at one’s personal time and space makes it even more rewarding, as one gets to take home an opus of a genius and can involve most of his senses in enjoying it, as opposed to mere reading it over the internet. The dimensions of cyberspace makes the work a little more detached to the reader. Holding a book in one’s hands and flipping the pages physically instead of a click on the mouse of a computer, makes the reader feel one with the author, not to mention the past and present generations of readers. This is not to say that the writer of this paper recommends traditional library use and disregard online library use. Complementary use of both is ideal, and would depend on the researchers’ circumstance and convenience. It is fortunate that most libraries the world over has access to online libraries in addition to their voluminous and remarkable collection of actual books. It just widens people’s horizons in research possibilities. Now, there is no more excuse to hand in mediocre research work. It is but fair to expect excellence in this area of study. References Information of Net Library. Retrieved on October 31, 2006 from http://www.netlibrary.com Nielsen, J. Ten Usability Heuristics. Retrieved October 30, 2006 from http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html Online demo. Retrieved on October 31, 2006 from http://www.netlibrary.com Read More