La presencia de las herramientas sociales en las sedes web de las Bibliotecas Académicas de Puerto Rico

Resumen

Academic libraries are incorporating Web 2.0 applications to enhance their websites services. The purpose of this study is to explore the presence and integration of social tool or web 2.0 technologies in the top Puerto Rican university libraries’ websites. A mixed methods content analysis methodology was applied to a sample of 29 top Puerto Rican universities libraries websites and 20 of the top universities libraries websites from the 2011 Academic Ranking of World Universities to establish a comparison. The web 2.0 tools were categorized by their functionalities and features. Data was collected by accessing the library websites in two separates occasions during the period of March and April 2012 and applying a checklist of twelve items, each representing a web 2.0 tool. The findings of the study acknowledge that 86% of the top Puerto Rican universities libraries apply one or more kinds of web 2.0 tools in their websites. Among the types of web 2.0 tools analyzed, blogs, RSS, Social networks, chat and audiovisuals are the most popular and virtual worlds, personalization and wikis are less frequent. The Puerto Rican academic libraries shows a high presence and adoption of web 2.0 tools but not as high of the world top academic libraries. Base on the findings, the researcher provides an academic library 2.0 model design to explain the information services using the Web 2.0 tools.