Community information portals: content and design issues for information access
| Date | 09 September 2014 |
| Pages | 435-449 |
| Published date | 09 September 2014 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-02-2014-0013 |
| Author | Philip Hider,Lisa M. Given,Paul Scifleet |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology |
Community information portals:
content and design issues for
information access
Philip Hider, Lisa M. Given and Paul Scifleet
School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University,
Wagga Wagga, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on the findings of an audit of community
information (CI) portals to provide an overview of how CI is being organised and presented on the web
by aggregating services, and how CI is being shaped and shared in community networks. It also
investigates the role that public libraries play in online CI provision.
Design/methodology/approach – The research sampled CI portals online within the Australian
web domain (.au). An audit of 88 portals was undertaken to establish the scope, role and usefulness of
the portals. The audit included a comprehensive usability analysis of a sub set of 20 portals evaluated
for 20 different heuristics based on Nielsen’s heuristic model.
Findings – The research finds that the challenge facing portals is not a lack of information, it is the
need to improve the mediation between the community services and people that CI portals promise
useful and usable information for. While public libraries remain integral to the provision of CI in their
geographical area, they now form part of a larger online network for CI provision, involving a wide
range of organisations.
Originality/value – The paper discusses the ways CI portals contribute to the provision of
information about community services and identifies areas where improvements are needed.
In particular, it discusses how these sites function as part of larger CI networks and where more
innovative, and more standardised, design could lead to greater levels of engagement and utility.
Keywords Public libraries, Communities, User interfaces, Portals
Paper type Research p aper
1. Introduction
The internet has enabled public libraries and other information service providers to
take information and referral services online, to present rich and wide-ranging
community information (CI) to their audiences through web por tals that provide
information about services and supports available to help people when they ne ed it.
People looking for local CI on health care, financial assistance, housing, transpo rtation,
education, childcare, recreational activities and local events are increasingly turning to
the internet and these portals for relevant info rmation. Finding the right information
about services and programmes is important; it can lead to life-changing (even
life-saving) events. For CI portals to meet this demand effectively they must be both
useful and usable (Gurstein, 2012; Tsakonas and Papatheodorou, 2006). However,
despite earlier development by libraries, the design and organisation of these portals
has remained problematic with few standards guiding the informatio n architecture
and web usability of these sites. Key questions in this area remain largely unanswered.
What types of information do citizens ne ed? Howcan portals be designed to meet those
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm
Received 2 February 2014
Revised 6 March 2014
Accepted 18 March 2014
Library Hi Tech
Vol.32 No. 3, 2014
pp. 435-449
rEmeraldGroup Publishing Limited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/LHT-02-2014-0013
The authors wish to acknowledge the contribution of the Project Research Assistant, Carole
Gerts, in preparing and participating in the coding of data for this research paper.
435
Community
information
portals
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