Personal Web pages as
professional activities:
an exploratory study
Angela E. Weaver
Introduction
We have all seen them: Web pages by
individuals proclaiming their interest in a
particular subject, perhaps even their expertise,
and a willingness to discuss the topic with
others ± ``Joseph Wu's origami page''[1] or
``Shock me sane ± Tori Amos''[2], for example.
With more and more people going online from
all parts of the globe, the World Wide Web
(WWW) has quickly become a viable and
reliable means of exchanging, and
communicating about, information. Some
experts have suggested that as many as 64.2
million US adults use the Internet regularly,
and almost 84 million have access to the
Internet either at home or at work[3].
The WWW offers librarians the opportunity
to expand their patron base and to increase
their reference interactions on a global scale.
This article examines the use of personal Web
sites as:
(1) a means of identifying reference librarians
as sources of accurate information;
(2) models for revising the way libraries present
reference information to patrons and
interact with patrons online; and
(3) a way to interact with patrons who share
similar interests, especially scholars
working in the field.
The author chose personal Web sites as
opposed to official pages primarily because it
was an unexplored area. Also, however, based
on the assumption that, much like grey
literature, an examination of these sites could
offer insight into communications and
interactions which might have been otherwise
difficult to capture. The article argues that by
integrating personal Web pages into
professional activities, librarians can participate
in the expanding realm of scholarly
communications taking place online.
Web page usage among libraries
Library and information science literature on
the WWW has, for the most part, focused on a
number of common issues such as designing
official library homepages (D'Angelo and Little,
1998), migrating printed pathfinders and
The author
Angela E. Weaver (cybers@olemiss.edu) is Library
Instruction Coordinator and Reference Bibliographer, J.D.
Williams Library, University of Mississippi, MS 38677, USA.
Keywords
Personal Web sites, Professional development,
World Wide Web, Internet, Academic libraries, Librarians
Abstract
Explores the possibility of considering the creation and
maintenance of reference librarians' personal Web sites as
part of their professional duties. After reviewing a sample of
personal Web sites and the results of an e-mail survey
targeting such sites and their creators, a case study is
presented of three home pages detailing interactions with
site visitors, especially interactions with research scholars, as
well as examining non-traditional reference service and
scholarly publishing. Concludes the article by offering
suggestions regarding the integration of personal Web sites
into professional reference librarians' duties and faculty
activities.
Electronic access
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
available at
http://www.emerald-library.com
171
Reference Services Review
Volume 28
.
Number 2
.
2000
.
pp. 171±177
# MCB University Press
.
ISSN 0090-7324