Academic subject guides: A case study of use at San José State University

College and Research Libraries

Volumn 68, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 119-139

  Staley, Shannon M ^a  

^a SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34247470407     PISSN: 00100870     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5860/crl.68.2.119     Document Type: Review

References (34)

1. Charles Stevens, Marie Canfield, and Jeffrey Gardner, "Library Pathfinders: A New Possibility for Cooperative Reference Service," College and Research Libraries 34 (Jan. 1973): 41.
2. Cohen and Still (Laura Cohen and Julie Still, "A Comparison of Research University and Two-year College Library Web Sites: Content, Functionality and Form," College & Research Libraries 60 (May 1999): 275-89)
3. examined the library homepages of 50 Ph.D.-granting institutions and 50 two-year colleges, finding that 84% of the research universities and 60% of the two-year schools referenced subject guides. Grimes and Morris (Marybeth Grimes and Sara Morris, "A Comparison of Academic Libraries' Webliographies," Internet Reference Services Quarterly 5 (2001): 69-77)
4. surveyed librarians at 19 colleges and universities and 18 Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) finding that 89% of respondents from colleges and universities and all respondents from ASERL libraries reported including subject guides as part of their Web site content. Jackson and Pellack (Rebecca Jackson and Lorraine Pellack, "Internet Subject Guides in Academic Libraries: An Analysis of Contents, Practices, and Opinions," Reference and User Services Quarterly 43 (Summer 2004): 319-27) surveyed 112 members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), of which 57% responded. 75% of the respondents indicated creating subject guides and nearly half (49%) noted that librarians' performance evaluations are influenced by the quality of their subject guides.
5. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 requires that electronic information be accessible to persons with disabilities. Available online at http://www.section508.gov [Accessed 7 December 2006].
6. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) provides protocols and guidelines to ensure Web site interoperability. Available online at http://www.w3.org. [Accessed 7 December 2006].
7. Originally, this study was planned to include students from the following academic programs: Art & Design, Computer Science, Nursing, Journalism & Mass Communications, and Organization & Management. The five academic programs were chosen based on consideration of the number of undergraduate students enrolled in the programs, the extent to which different types of programs were represented (Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Applied Sciences), the availability of corresponding librarian subject specialists in this area, and whether or not these librarians had fully developed and promoted their subject guides, However, faculty in the Art & Design and Computer Science programs ultimately opted to drop out of this study because of curricular demands. As a result, it was not possible to survey students on subject guide use from a balance of disciplines at San José State University.
8. Alice Warner, "Pathfinders: A Way to Boost Your Information Handouts Beyond Booklists and Bibliographies," American Libraries 14 (Mar. 1983): 150-51.
9. Stevens, Canfield, and Gardner, "Library Pathfinders," 40-46.
10. Patricia S. Breivik, Planning the Library Instruction Program (Chicago: American Library Association, 1982).
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13. Jim Kapoun, "Re-thinking the Library Pathfinder," College and Undergraduate Libraries 2 (May 1995): 93-105.
14. Corinne Laverty, "Library Instruction on the Web: Inventing Options and Opportunities," Internet Reference Services Quarterly 2 (1997): 55-66.
15. Candice Dahl, "Electronic Pathfinders in Academic Libraries: An Analysis of Their Content and Form," College & Research Libraries 62 (May 2001): 227-37.
16. Peter Morville and Susan Wickhorst, "Building Subject-specific Guides to Internet Resources," Collection Building 14 (1995): 26-31.
17. Scott Silet, "Anatomy of the Internet Reference Resources Web Page: A UVA Library Experiment," Virginia Libraries 45 (1999): 6-10.
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19. Warner, "Pathfinders."
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21. Tammy Sugarman and Constance Demetracopoulos, "Creating a Web Research Guide: Collaboration Between Liaisons, Faculty and Students," Reference Services Review 29 (2001): 150-56.
22. Kristin Antelman, "Getting Out of the HTML Business: The Database-driven Web Site Solution," Information Technology and Libraries 18 (Dec. 1999): 176-81.
23. Linda Bills, Rachel Cheng, and Alan Nathanson, "Subject Web Page Management Without HTML Coding: Two Approaches," Information Technology and Libraries 22 (Mar. 2003): 4-11.
24. University Libraries, University of Washington, "By Subjects Usability Study: User Summaries." Available online at http://www.lib. washington.edu/Usability/by-subj/bysubjectusers.html. [Accessed 14 December 2006].
25. Web Advisory Group, MIT Libraries, "Big Test Usability Test Results: Some General Observations." Available online at http://macfadden.mit.edu: 9500/webgroup/usability2002/big-test/observations.html. [Accessed 7 October 2006].
26. Brenda Reeb and Susan Gibbons, "Students, Librarians, and Subject Guides: Improving a Poor Rate of Return," Portal 4 (2004): 123.
27. Jakob Nielson and Thomas Landauer, "A Mathematical Model of the Finding of Usability Problems," Proceedings of ACM INTERCHI'93 Conference (Apr. 1993): 206-13.
28. "Survey Results - Draft: Combined Results: Pop-Up and E-mail: Summary." Available from Emily C. Jackson Sanbom, Reference and Digital Services Librarian, Duke University Libraries; e-mail: emily.jackson. sanborn@duke.edu.
29. Bucknell Information Services and Resources, "Pathfinder Survey Results: Post-Survey Comments"; contact Isabella O'Neill for copies at ioneffl@bucknell.edu.
30. Mads Haahr has created a true random number generator. Available online at http://www.random.org/sform.html. [Accessed 7 December 2006].
31. The size of each research population was defined by the number of declared majors in a discipline during the spring 2005 semester regardless of whether or not these students were taking courses directly related to their major. However, the School of Nursing kept separate and specific enrollment statistics apart from those generated by the university. While the university estimates 1,216 declared Nursing majors for the spring 2005 semester, the School of Nursing confirms that only 565 of these students were enrolled in Nursing courses. The remaining students were likely fulfilling general education course requirements and were not an appropriate target for questioning the use of the Nursing subject guide. Consequently, the author was actually able to survey a broader percentage of the Nursing student research population (45.1%) than reflected in the university statistics. Extrapolating from this trend, the number of students surveyed in the School of Journalism & Mass Communications and the Department of Organization & Management likely represents a larger percentage of the respective student research populations as well.
32. At San José State University, the School of Journalism & Mass Communications recognizes the following programs within its major area of study: Advertising, Journalism, Mass Communications, and Public Relations. The Organization & Management department recognizes the following concentrations within its major area of study: International Business, Human Resource Management, Management, and Hospitality Management.
33. Carol Kuhlthau, "Inside the Search Process: Information Seeking from the User's Perspective," Journal of the American Society for Information Science 42 (1991): 361.
34. Carol Kuhlthau, "The Process of Learning from Information." In The Virtual School Library: Gateway to the Information Superhighway (Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1996).