College & Research Libraries (C&RL) will become an open access publication beginning with the May 2011 issue.
Citation Management Software: Features and Futures (RUSQ) compares RefWorks, EndNote, and Zotero from both a user and librarian perspective.
Reference and virtual reference
Search for the answer, not the question - "Assume the answer to your question is out there, and think about how the answer might have been written." I've been teaching students something like this, focusing on thinking about who would have written about something and where they would have published.
"Are We Getting Warmer?": Query Clarification in Live Chat Virtual Reference (RUSQ)
"Results indicate that accuracy was enhanced for librarians who used clarifying questions in answering ready reference (factual) questions."
Mu, X., Dimitroffa, A., Jordana, J., and Burclaffa, N. A Survey and Empirical Study of Virtual Reference Service in Academic Libraries The Journal of Academic Librarianship 37(2) pp. 120-129.
"Virtual Reference Services (VRS) have high user satisfaction. The main problem is its low usage. We surveyed 100 academic library web sites to understand how VRS are presented. We then conducted a usability study to further test an active VRS model regarding its effectiveness."
Website usability
One-Pager is a simple, mobile-friendly, user-friendly "library website template that allows your patrons to find what they want" - described elsewhere as a solution to messy library websites.
A couple of papers from Computers in Libraries are reported:
- Usability Express: A recipe for libraries (worth it just for the classic xkcd cartoon)
- Building Great Websites ("Take-away goal: Reduce your site by half – it doesn't mean you have bad content, but people cant find it because there is too much to look through".)
