After a long dark hiatus, I guess I’ll try using this blog as a place to consider the research guide I agreed to adopt.
That guide (guides.ccclib.org/general) is meant to focus on “General Research”–a term that doesn’t convey to me a lot of detailed meaning. It is broad enough that I could take it in a number of divergent directions.
Those who originally created it focused on electronic data resources–databases, sources of raw statistical data, etc.–that are available on the library’s website.
My initial modifications reflect my academic background.
- I added links to online resources and tools to help find and organize information. Gathering and organizing information means more than just searching Google.
- I added links to pages that discuss how to construct online searches that will achieve the searcher’s intended results. I think that most users can benefit from having access to this kind of information.
- I added links to pages on research methods. Although they are specialized, I think they can be useful to students who have to write research papers in high school and college.
I have since examined the use statistics for the guide, and I have found that overwhelmingly, users have selected only a few items on my guide. Of the 800 or so views of the initial page, about 60% clicked on a link they found there. The remaining viewers just went away again.
Of the secondary click,the breakdown for links with more than 10 clicks was this:
| Link | Count | PCT |
|---|---|---|
| General Onefile | 203 | 39.11% |
| Opposing Viewpoints | 81 | 15.61% |
| Conducting Research | 41 | 7.90% |
| General Reference Center Gold | 37 | 7.13% |
| Statistical Data Sources | 27 | 5.20% |
| Power Search | 23 | 4.43% |
| ReferenceUSA | 21 | 4.05% |
| National Weather Service | 18 | 3.47% |
| WhichSearch | 12 | 2.31% |
What I am trying to decide is whether this dataset offers any insight on the direction to take the guide. It makes sense that a lot of people go to General Onefile and Opposing Viewpoints, and of course I’ll keep those.
But what about all those links with one or two clicks? Should they go, or can the users be induced to click these links as well if the pages were built differently?
What does it mean that the National Weather Service ranks so highly? Should I add local weather and events as a topic of “research”?
I welcome comments.
