A Webometric study of selected academic libraries in eastern and southern Africa using a link analysis approach

Abstract

This paper investigates the Web presence and performance of academic libraries drawn from six countries in eastern and southern Africa (i.e. three each from eastern and southern Africa). Using link and content analyses, the study evaluated the libraries’ websites in order to: examine the location of the libraries’ websites in the university website; measure each library’s link performance in terms of web page, directory, domain and site out-links and in-links; examine each library’s performance in terms of the provision of essential online services (e.g. web-catalogues, web forms, web search engines, etc.); map the libraries’ inter-linkages with each other; and to find out the most targeted web-sites/pages. Results, discussions and recommendations are provided.