Marketing information resources and services on the web: current status of academic libraries in the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyze and describe the current status of academic library websites. It specifically targets public and private universities and colleges accredited by the Commission for Academic Accreditation, Ministry of High Education, United Arab Emirates. A total of 29 academic library websites were examined using a checklist of criteria developed from the previous studies and current websites. Most of the websites were visited at least two times during the assessment which started by checking the availability of direct and non-direct links from the home page of the parent institution followed by website assessment against the checklist. The study confirmed that websites are not fully utilized for marketing library resources and services. A large majority of libraries did not make any effort to provide online literacy courses, live supports, copyright documents, and online user surveys. Likewise, more than 80 percent of the websites could not be read in Arabic.