The Presence of Web 2.0 Applications Is Associated with the Overall Service Quality of Library Websites. A Review of: Chua, A. Y. K., & Goh, D. H. (2010). A study of Web 2.0 applications in library websites. Library & Information Science Research, 32(3), 203-211.

Objective – To determine the prevalence and use of web 2.0 applications in library websites and to determine whether or not their presence enhances the quality of the sites. Design – Content analysis. Setting – Public and academic libraries in North America, Europe, and Asia. Subjects – A total of 120 academic and public library websites in English. Methods – This study identified and selected library websites from academic and public libraries using a combination of directories, ratings reports, and ranking lists from three geographic regions. Over a four-month period in 2009, three coders conducted a three-step content analysis of the selected library websites. This analysis was conducted after having established inter-coder reliability using Cohen’s Kappa and analytic procedure familiarity, using a randomly selected pilot set of 30 library websites. The remaining 90 websites were evenly distributed among the three coders for analysis. They determined whether web 2.0 applications were present, examined how those applications were used, and gave an overall appraisal of website quality. Coders inspected library website links, conducted site searches, used search engines, and searched within major social networking sites to determine the presence of web 2.0 applications. A quality framework classification scheme was used during coding to identify how the web 2.0 applications were being used within library websites. This framework was established around four dimensions of library services: information acquisition (blogs and wikis), information dissemination (Rich Site Summary, or “RSS”), information organization (social tagging), and information sharing (social networking and instant messaging). A five-point Likert scale was also used in concert with a website quality evaluation framework to assess the quality of the library websites. This framework included three aspects of website quality: system quality, information quality, and service quality. A combination of statistical techniques such as Chi-square analysis, Cramer’s V, analysis of variance, Tukey’s statistic, and multiple regression were then used to analyze the findings. Main Results – Web 2.0 applications have been adopted by libraries across North America, Europe, and Asia. The most popular web 2.0 applications were blogs (56.6%), RSS (50%), and instant messaging services (46.6%) while less prevalent were social networking services (20%), wikis (16.6%), and social tagging applications (16.6%). The extent of libraries’ adoption of web 2.0 applications also varied according to region. North Ameri