Responsive Library Website Design and Adoption of Federated Search Tools for Library Services in Developing Countries

Background

Library and information science have been witnessing a technological development over a long period of time, beginning from the introduction of computers and the first large-scale online catalogues developed at Ohio State University in 1975 and the Dallas Public Library in 1978 (Borgman, 1996). Online catalogues have been in existence long before the development of websites, but according to Borgman (1996), they were difficult to use because their design did not incorporate sufficient understanding of searching behavior. Beginning from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, libraries were faced with transformation driven by information technology; the emergence of the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s was possibly the clearest indication of this shift. At the beginning of the 21st century, libraries were besieged to adopt modernization and to recognize the implications and meanings of transformation (Lynch, 2000). Earlier than the development of the World Wide Web, librarians and information professionals have acknowledged the essence of creating a common interface to navigate diverse information resources with a single search. The global search and retrieval protocol, Z39.50, was initially proposed in 1984 as a standard of interrogating bibliographic databases by the American National Standard for Information retrieval/ National Information Standards Organization (ANSI/NISO). Since then, it has gone through three editions, the newest of which was launched in 1995 (Kumar Sanaman & Rai, 2008).

History has it that Tim Berners-Lee; a computer scientist from Britain introduced the World Wide Web technology over 20 years ago. The Web has since become an exciting place for communication, business interaction and other activities. Since the emergence of the web technology, the users’ expectations and needs to access library resources remotely have compelled libraries to embrace websites as a medium of reaching out to their numerous customers without barrier of space and time. Ogunsola (2008) reiterated that the professional librarian is expected to keep pace with new findings and products in the profession. Web technology is one of the major Integration of Information Communication Technology (ICT) products reshaping virtually all facets of professions and librarianship is no exception. Today, especially in advanced countries, libraries have largely integrated web technology to drive library services for users to have access to a variety of interconnected information resources compared to a period when users had to search through thousands of catalogue cards. Obviously, the Internet and related technologies have changed the use of libraries. The Web technology cuts across all human endeavors and the Library website is one major way to create access and serve library users remotely. The Library website gives a user an idea of what a library has in terms of its collection, both print and electronic databases, digitized resources as well as the services being offered by the library. The advent of web technology provides a better way to reach out to numerous users and has given birth to different innovation such as Web 2.0., which came more than a decade ago; Business 2.0, Education 2.0, Library 2.0 and now Web 3.0 among many others. Technological advancement is one part of the equation; librarians and libraries need a paradigm shift to make the best use of the technology available to them to avoid replicating existing structures in a new medium, which does not depict the best use of technological resources (Khurshid and Ahmed 2007). Designing a website that will best serve all categories of library users with their various devices is a paradigm shift in library and information services.