Article on research guides
From Marilee:
I think you should direct LibGuiders to this article. Mostly because I want someone else to at least explain the abstract to me if not the entire article.
“Meta-Assessment of Online Research Guides
Usage,” by Charles Smith. The Reference
Librarian 47, no. 1 (2007): 79-93.
Using research guides developed for Western
Kentucky University, Smith used a “multiple
regression analysis…to predict usage rates on
the basis of surrogates for size of possible
usership, and variations in quality and size of
the of the guides themselves. The ‘badness of
fit’ of the regression model can be used to
suggest ways of improving the outreach effort,
as the residuals left from the analysis arguably
identify related lapses in coverage or promotion”
(abstract).
February 28th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
I hope you don’t mind an intruder (from Boston College), but that abstract is just so precious. I don’t know if I dare attempt the article itself.
March 12th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
As the writer of the “precious” abstract, I can only tell you that the journal forces authors to reduce the meaning of their works down to an impossibly small space, abstract-wise. The article is not terribly difficult to understand, but if you have no experience in statistical analysis–up to linear regression, either a first or second year statistics subject–it will probably be slow going. I hope everyone will not be frightened off, because the approach I describe is wonderfully suited to program assessment, something that is rather difficult to accomplish within the library context.