Evaluation and Criteria of the World Wide Web: Reference Web Sites.

This paper applies an evaluation method for World Wide Web sites that provide access to online reference materials at academic and public libraries. The evaluation of Web sites was performed with a questionnaire form focusing on Web site currency, accuracy and relevancy; Web site organization/structure; Web site presentation; URL maintenance; and Web site features. Average scores were tabulated from each of the five evaluation categories and Web sites were compared based on those scores. Six sites were chosen after scanning numerous Web sites at Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE's "Libraries On The Web." It was not proven whether reference sites that have been updated more recently have fewer cases of no URL found than those that have been updated less recently. Second, it would seem the university library reference sites utilize graphics better than the public library reference sites. Also there was very little difference in the quality of sites, although academic sites generally provided more than enough links and public library sites provided too little links. Most of the reference sites evaluated consisted of excessively large pages of links. It appears libraries are constructing reference sites with a linear model or some kind of variation of it. It gives the impression that they could do just as well with a Web search engine, without the library's assistance. (Contains 29 references.) (AEF)