SHOWCASING UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ON THE WEB: A … Chakraborty.pdf · E-mail:[email protected], Phone: 9163278886 Solanki Chakraborty Librarian, Central Modern College of Education,

IJNGLT, MAY 2019, VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2 WWW.IJNGLT.COM

Showcasing university library on the web: a comparative and informetric study of the websites of private universities in West Bengal

1 | P a g e International Journal of Next Generation Library and Technologies (ISSN 2395 – 5201)

SHOWCASING UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ON THE WEB: A

COMPARATIVEAND INFORMETRICSTUDY OF THE WEBSITES OF

PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN WEST BENGAL

SujanBandhu Chakraborty Asst. Librarian, Brainware Group of Institutions, 398, Ramkrishnapur, Barasat, Kolkata – 700125

E-mail:[email protected], Phone: 9163278886

Solanki Chakraborty Librarian, Central Modern College of Education, 156, M.N.K Road, Baranagar, Kolkata – 700036

ABSTRACT

To meet the demand for effective information among the students community, the academic institutions

are now developing dynamic websites to convey the facilities and infrastructures they have. This is very

fruitful, not only for the current students of the institutions but also for the prospective future students

who are planning to take admission in those institutions. Library is one of the integral parts of an

academic institution. For any higher education institution library play a very important role to support the

academics, research and development etc. This paper has attempted to evaluate the contents and

accessibility features of library available in the websites of ten private universities in West Bengal. This

study has been carried out from March 09, 2019 to April 09, 2019. For the evaluation of the websites

certain criteria were set and at the end ranks were given based on the observations. It was observed that

most of the private universities in West Bengal developed their university websites as a part of the

minimum standard required. As a result the web presence of their libraries was not at all satisfactory in

most of the cases. Some suggestions have been recommended based on the observations at the end for

future improvements.

Keywords: Content analysis, web presence, library website, private university, West Bengal.

1. INTRODUCTION

Global education business is going through a change due to revolution in information especially in the

field of World Wide Web (WWW) and information is one of the main pillars of education. Academic

institutions are now providing in-depth information about the courses, facilities, and other resources they

have through their institutional websites. Library is an integral part of an academic institution. Therefore,

it is very much obvious that the academic institutions, especially higher education institutions, should




provide all the necessary information about their library on their institutional websites. A dedicated

library website or web page on the university's website is a very effective tool for publicizing and

showcasing library services.

The present study has made an attempt to do a comparative analysis of web presence of the private

university libraries in West Bengal.

2. BACKGROUND

Information is emerging as one of the main competitive assets in present global education business. In

fact, information is a key to drive business advantages. Therefore, proper and effective information in

education is an inevitable demand. Being is a key provider of information, the library of an academic

institution should have a dedicated website or webpage to provide the online services and information to

the users.

In last ten years or so, ten private universities came into existence in West Bengal. These Universities are:

Table A: List of private universities in West Bengal with their year of establishment

Name of the Private Universities in West Bengal Year of Establishment

1. Adamas University-[AU] 2014

2. Amity University (Kolkata)-[AUK] 2014

3. Brainware University-[BWU] 2016

4. JIS University-[JISU] 2015

5. Seacom Skills University-[SSU] 2014

6. Sister Nivedita University-[SNU] 2018

7. St. Xavier University-[SXU] 2017

8. Techno India University-[TIU] 2012

9. The Neotia University-[TNU] 2015

10. University of Engineering and Management (Kolkata)-[UEMK] 2014

The present study is an exploration to find out how the above listed ten private universities are giving

importance to their library and how they are providing effective information, links of various library

services on their institutional websites.




3. LITERATURE REVIEW

SN Archana and SH Kabir (2010) evaluated the web presence of the engineering college libraries in

Kerala. They found majority of the websites of engineering colleges in Kerala had least representation of

their respective libraries.

A study by Kannappanavar, B.U., Jayaprakash and M MBachalapur (2011), analised the content of

Engineering College Library Websites in Tumkur District, Karnataka. They found that Engineering

College libraries were not maintaining a separate library website, and limited information was provided

through their institution website.

PreedipBalaji B. and Vinit Kumar, (2011) assessed the use of web-technologies in delivering information

services by technological universities in southern India as presented in library websites. The study found

that the rate of dissemination of information services through web was satisfactory.

Wijayaratne, Anusha (2013) found that the university libraries had marked their presence gracefully in the

cyberspace in Sri Lanka.

Savitha, K. S (2016) examined the contents of websites of deemed university libraries of Karnataka,

India. The analysis revealed that a good number of universities provided general and basic information

about their libraries in their respective websites. Majority of the universities offered access facility to their

subscribed databases, OPAC etc.

Sandeep Kumar and Mahendra Singh Mir (2017) studied the web content of the library websites of

Central Universities of Central India and they found that all four Central Universities had Web OPAC,

access to digital library, database access, and plagiarism checking software, etc. on their library pages.

Soumya Singh Tomar, Mohammed Imtiaz Ahmed and Amarjit Kumar Singh (2018) found, in their study

on National Law University libraries in India, that the universities had poor representation of their web-

identity. They suggested that the universities required giving a thought on this regard.

A recent study by AnanyaDasgupta and Meghmala Gupta (2019) examined the library web presence of

technical colleges of West Bengal through content analysis and they found that the websites are

developed as a routine organizational matter, rather than a conscious process.




4. OBJECTIVES

The present study was initiated with the following objectives:

To find out the amount of effective information given about their libraries by the private

universities in West Bengal on their institutional website

To find out the content on library provided in the library page or website

To find out whether minimum basic information about the library were given or not

To do a comparative study of contents of library webpage or website

To evaluate the importance given on the web presence of the library on university website

To rank the universities based on the score on the criteria of evaluation

5. METHODOLOGY

At first, an in-depth search has been conducted using the websites of the private universities of West

Bengal, available in UGC website during March09, 2019 to April 09, 2019.

Table B: List of private universities in West Bengal with their Website URL

University Website URL

1. Adamas University-[AU] www.adamasuniversity.ac.in

2. Amity University (Kolkata)-[AUK] www.amity.edu/Kolkata/

3. Brainware University-[BWU] www.brainwareuniversity.ac.in/

4. JIS University-[JISU] www.jisuniversity.ac.in/

5. Seacom Skills University-[SSU] www.seacomskillsuniversity.org/

6. Sister Nivedita University-[SNU] www.snuniv.ac.in/

7. St. Xavier University-[SXU] www.sxuk.edu.in/

8. Techno India University-[TIU] www.technoindiauniversity.ac.in/

9. The Neotia University-[TNU] www.tnu.in/

10. University of Engineering and Management (Kolkata)-[UEMK]

www.uem.edu.in/uem-kolkata/

To analyse the content and accessibility features of the library pages or site on the institutional websites

of the private universities in West Bengal, the following criteria were set:

Availability of Library Webpage or Library website or Library section in a page in the websites

of the Universities to access from outside of the campus.




Availability of basic information about the Library in the library webpage/ university website on

the internet.

Under this category, some subcategories were framed such as, About the Library and Library

Rules, Collections, Facilities, Services and Departments, Membership and Circulations, Library

Management Software used, Library Layout, Annual Library Report.

Availability of WebOPAC in the library webpage/ university website on the internet.

Availability of link to access the online resources of the library in the university website.

Availability of information on Librarian, library staff members and web contact form to

communicate with the library in the university website.

To rank the universities in terms of the web presence of their library.

To compare and give rank to the universities a weight age or score has been given under each category to

the universities and the availability of the features were marked with Y (Yes) and N (No) in the tables

based on the findings.

6. SCOPE AND LIMITATION

This present study would help to understand the web presence of the libraries of the private universities in

the state of West Bengal. As the study has been carried out during March 09, 2019 to April 09, 2019

therefore, analysis has been done on the basis of data collected in this period only. At present, the features

of the websites of the said private universities may be or may not be changed.

This study did not analyze the quality of the websites. Therefore, there is a scope of a qualitative research

of websites of the universities.

7. FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

The websites of the private universities of West Bengal, available in UGC website during March 09, 2019

to April 09, 2019, are accessed to analysed the contents on library and features available on the library

page/website. The finding has been categorized in six different sections and their subsections. The

analysis of the findings is discussed below.




7.1 Availability of Library website or Library webpage in university websites on the Internet

Table 1: Availability of Library website or Library webpage

University

Dedicated

Library

Website

available on

the internet

A dedicated Menu

in the Homepage or

a page on “Library”

in the University

website on the

internet

Library as a sub-

section in a

certain page in

the University

website on the

internet

No Site/ Page/

Section on Library

in the University

Website on

Internet

Total

Score

(Score 3) (Score 2) (Score 1) (Score 0)

AU N N N Y 0

AUK N N Y - 1

BWU N Y N - 2

JISU N N N Y 0

SSU N N N Y 0

SNU N Y N - 2

SXU N Y N - 2

TIU N Y N - 2

TNU N Y N - 2

UEMK N N Y - 1

It is very clear from Table-1 that, none of the universities had a dedicated library website on the internet.

Only 5(50%) universities have a dedicated menu in the homepage or a page on “Library” in the university

website. A weightage was given to AUK and UEMK as in the homepage of UEMK website, a section,

labeled as “Library”, a small description about the library and its collection, of IEM-UEM Group was

given, not specifically of Kolkata campus and in case of AUK (www.amity.edu) main page, a brief

description about Library was found which was not specifically for Kolkata campus.




7.2 Availability of basic information about the Library in the library webpage/ university website

on the internet

Table 2: Availability of basic information about the Library

AUK posted a photo with a caption “Central Library” under Infrastructure section but no other

information is available in their website, though some links to the libraries of the campuses other than

Kolkata were available. When a search was made in their “http://www.amity.edu” website then a page

was found on Central Library where the area of the library, brief information about collections on books

University

Information on

Lib

rary

an

d L

ibra

ry R

ule

s

Coll

ecti

on

s

Faci

liti

es,

Ser

vic

es a

nd

Dep

art

men

ts

Mem

ber

ship

an

d

Cir

cula

tio

ns

Lib

rary

Man

ag

emen

t

Soft

ware

use

d

Lib

rary

La

yo

ut

An

nu

al

Lib

rary

Rep

ort

Total

Score

Score

1

Score

1

Score

1

Score

1

Score

1

Score

1

Score

1

AU N N N N N N N 0

AUK N N N N N N N 0

BWU Y Y Y Y Y N N 5

JISU N N N N N N N 0

SSU N N N N N N N 0

SNU Y N Y N N N N 2

SXU Y Y Y Y Y N Y 6

TIU Y Y N N N N N 2

TNU Y Y N N N N N 2

UEMK Y Y N N N N N 2




and journals and databases, a link to digital library were available. But no link to library was found in the

webpage of Amity University Kolkata campus.

BWU and SXU provided a dedicated menu on Library at the homepage of the university website.

Information on Services, Resources, Library Rules, Membership, links to e-journal, WebOPAC, Library

Management Software, etc. were available. SXU provided latest annual report on library.

SNU provided a sub-menu on library under ‘Campus Life’ menu on the homepage of their university

website. They provided a very brief description about their library, collections and services, but that

information was insufficient.

UEMK, TIU and TNU provided very brief information on library and its collections, which is very

insufficient for any user. In UEM website, a small description about the library of IEM-UEM Group was

given but not specifically for Kolkata campus.

AU, JISU, SSU did not provide any link to their university library through the university website.

7.3 Availability of WebOPAC

Table 3: Availability of WebOPAC

University

Link to WebOPAC available in the

homepage/ in library website/ in a section

under any page in the university website on

the internet

Link to WebOPACNOT

available on the internet Total

Score

Score 1 Score 0

AU N Y 0

AUK N Y 0

BWU Y - 1

JISU N Y 0

SSU N Y 0

SNU N Y 0

SXU Y - 1

TIU N Y 0

TNU N Y 0

UEMK N Y 0

From Table-3 it can be seen that, only two universities made WebOPAC link available for the users in

their university website. Surprisingly, in case of all the other 8 universities no OPAC link was available

on their university website.




7.4 Availability of link to access the online resources of the library

Table 4: Availability of link to access the e-resources of the library

University

E-resource Links available in the homepage/ in library website/ in a

section under any page in the university website on the internet

Total

Score E-journals/

Databases/ e-

books

Open

Educational

courseware

(MOOCs)

National

Digital

Library/

Other

Digital

Libraries

Other e-

resources

NOT

available

Score 1 Score 1 Score 1 Score 1 Score 0

AU N N N N Y 0

AUK Y N N Y - 2

BWU Y N Y Y - 3

JISU N N N N Y 0

SSU N N N N Y 0

SNU N N N N Y 0

SXU Y N Y Y - 3

TIU N N N N Y 0

TNU N N N N Y 0

UEMK N N N N Y 0

Table-4 reveals that seven universities did not provide any link to the e-resources of their library at their

homepage or library webpage. AUK provided a link “Amizone” at the homepage on their university

website. There the users would get information about e-resources of the university. BWU and SXU very

effectively provided the links to various e-resources.

7.5 Availability of information onLibrary staff members and social media presence

During the study it has been found that only Brainware University and Seacom Skills University provided

information about the Librarians of their libraries. Brainware University mentioned the name and email-

ids of their Librarian, Asst. Librarian and contact no. of library on their WebOPAC page. Seacom Skills

University mentioned about their Librarian in the faculty profile segment in their website, but no contact




details of the library or library staff members was mentioned. Table-5 shows the result in the tabular

form.

Table 5: Availability of information on Library staff members and social media presence of the library

University

Availability of

information about

Librarian and Library

staff members, including

contact details

Availability

of Contact

number of

Library

Web-form for

Library to

communicate/

Blog/ Social

Media presence

NOT

Available Total

Score

Score 1 Score 1 Score 1 Score 0

AU N N N Y 0

AUK N N N Y 0

BWU Y Y N - 2

JISU N N N Y 0

SSU Y N N - 1

SNU N N N Y 0

SXU N N N Y 0

TIU N N N Y 0

TNU N N N Y 0

UEMK N N N Y 0

Only 20% of the universities had provided information on Library staff members. Social media presence

of all the university libraries was nil.

7.6 Ranking of the universities based on the scores in terms of the web presence of their library

Based on the above findings and analysis, an attempt was made to rank the 10 private universities in West

Bengal. As the study has been pursued during March 09-April 09, 2019, therefore, the ranking of these

universities were determined based on the scores given to them as per the criteria was set for the study.




It is found that Brainware University ranked on the top while St. Xavier University placed at the second

position based on the results. JIS and Adamas University did not score well and placed at the last position

due to lack of information about their university library on their websites.

Table 6: Ranking of the universities based on the scores in Table 1-5

University Table 1

Score

Table 2

Score

Table 3

Score Table 4

Score Table 5

Score Total

Score

Overall

Rank

Adamas

University-[AU] 0 0 0 0 0 0 6

Amity University (Kolkata)-[AUK]

1 0 0 2 0 3 4

Brainware

University[BWU] 2 5 1 3 2 13 1

JIS University-[JISU]

0 0 0 0 0 0 6

Seacom Skills

University-[SSU] 0 0 0 0 1 1 5

Sister Nivedita University-[SNU]

2 2 0 0 0 4 3

St. Xavier

University-[SXU] 2 6 1 3 0 12 2

Techno India University-[TIU]

2 2 0 0 0 4 3

The Neotia

University-[TNU] 2 2 0 0 0 4 3

University of

Engineering and

Management

(Kolkata)-[UEMK]

1 2 0 0 0 3 4

8. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The study revealed that most of the private universities in West Bengal developed their university

websites as a part of the minimum standard required. As a result the web presence of their library was not

at all satisfactory in most of the cases. Some of the universities tried to provide effective information on

their libraries but need further improvements.

It is recommended to all the universities to develop a separate library website for the university library

with links to useful resources to cater better library service not only for the users within the campus but




also for outside of the campus. All the private universities in West Bengal are relatively new and they are

still in the developmental phase. Therefore, it can be expected that within few years the libraries of all

these universities will come up with better features and technologies to serve the best to the users.

REFERENCE

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Documents

SHOWCASING UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ON THE WEB: A … Chakraborty.pdf · E-mail:[email protected], Phone: 9163278886 Solanki Chakraborty Librarian, Central Modern College of Education,