2009 Second International Symposium on Knowledge Acquisition and Modeling
A Survey of the Application of Web 2.0 in Top 30 Chinese University Libraries
Li Si1, Ruoyao Shi1, Bijuan Chen1
1
School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China
e-mail: sunnylily99new@yahoo.com.cn, cheryl11@yahoo.cn, chenbijuan2004@yahoo.com.cn
Abstract—This paper takes the top 30 Chinese university
libraries as a sample, and investigates the application of Web
2.0 technologies including RSS, Wiki, Blog, Tag/Folksonomy,
IM, Podcast/Vodcast, Toolbar and Ajax. The results show
that there are two-thirds of libraries adopting one or more
Web 2.0 technologies. Only one-tenth of libraries adopting
more than four Web 2.0 technologies. RSS was the most
widely applied technology and Wiki was the least used one.
The application of Web 2.0 technologies was not extensive
and profound enough and was still in the early stage of
development. The main reason lies in some shortcomings of
technology application, librarian quality, service marketing
and information literacy and etc.
Keywords-Web 2.0 application; Chinese university library
1. INTRODUCTION
The concept of “Web 2.0” began with a conference
brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive
International, Dale Dougherty, web pioneer [1]. O’Reilly,
the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media Inc. generalizes
“Web 2.0 is the web as platform” and applications of Web
2.0 are based on that platform. The user-centered service
philosophy and the application of collective intelligence
have brought important changes in information creation,
access, exchange manner and service platform. More and
more websites provide users personalized, interactive and
innovative service, which signifies the development trend
of Internet. Meanwhile, Web 2.0 information environment
also brings unprecedented challenges to libraries.
Professor Fan Bingsi considers: “The second generation
Internet technology that is Web 2.0 will make information
providers more decentralized and popularized, and make
information service more miniaturized and personalized.
In the foreseeable future, these technologies can weaken
greatly the status of libraries in information service fields
than the first generation technologies”[2]. It is necessary
to make use of Web 2.0 philosophy and technology to
improve information organization and service in libraries
in such an urgent time.
2. RESEARCH DESIGN
2.1 Research sample
According to the Chinese university ranking released
by Research Center for Chinese Science Evaluation in
2009[3], the authors select the libraries of these top 30
universities as investigation object. Thus, the research
population is 30 libraries. The research object is to reveal
the application status of Web 2.0 in Chinese academic
libraries. The investigation of Web2.0 technology covers
RSS, Wiki, Blog, Tag/Folksonomy, IM, Podcast/Vodcast,
978-0-7695-3888-4/09 $26.00
$25.00 © 2009 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/KAM.2009.49
Toolbar and Ajax. The data gathering time is arranged
between March 10th 2009 and April 18th 2009.
2.2 Research procedures
1) Select top 30 Chinese universities according to the
university ranking released by Research Center for
Chinese Science Evaluation in 2009 as research sample,
and create a list of these top university libraries.
2) Search related document about Web 2.0 and its
application in libraries, record the kinds of Web 2.0
technology, the service function provided and the user
interfaces of the top university libraries, and refine and
improve investigation forms.
3) Access all library websites of these libraries in the
list to identify the existence of Web 2.0 technologies,
browse for links such as , , , “news”, “reader
services”, “directories”, “Toolbar”, etc. to see the
availability of RSS, blogs, IM, podcasts and wikis. Such
links are usually on the home pages or the second-level
sub-pages of the library websites.
4) Use “search” function of the websites, search for
words or phrases such as “RSS”, “blog”, “library blog”,
“instant messaging”, “chat”, “podcast”, “vodcast”, “wiki”
and “tag”. This step was useful as it enabled the researcher
to identify the availability of Web 2.0 on the libraries’
websites even if the links to those applications are not in
the home pages or the second-level sub-pages of the web
sites.
5) Use “Google search” for libraries that do not
provide a search box on their websites to search within the
libraries’ web site domain by following the syntax:
keyword site: www.domainname. For example, to see
whether the library of Tsinghua University uses RSS or
not, the following search expression was used: RSS site:
www.lib.tsinghua.edu.cn.
3. INVESTIGATION OF THE APPLICATION OF WEB 2.0 IN
TOP 30 CHINESE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
3.1 General web 2.0 application
Taking the libraries of the top 30 universities as a
sample, the authors carried out a series of investigations on
the application of web 2.0 and made initial statistics. The
research object is to identify what sort of Web 2.0
technologies are applied and what features of Web 2.0
technologies appear in these university libraries. Table
was the result of the survey:
We rank the applications of web 2.0 technologies in
descending order of application indexes and they ranked as
follows: RSS (37%), IM (32%), toolbar (12%), blog (7%),
Ajax (5%), Tag/Folksonomy (5%), wiki (2%),
Podcast/Vodcast (0%). As Table shows, there have been
135
3 university libraries using five kinds of web 2.0
applications in combination, and they are Tsinghua
University Library, Shanghai Jiaotong University library,
and Xiamen University Knowledge Resource Portal.
3.2 Usage analysis of types of web 2.0 applications
1) Application of RSS technology
• Service function of RSS. RSS is the web 2.0
technology that is utilized most widely. For those
fifteen libraries which have RSS applications, the
authors made a further analysis on their purposes
and the results are described in detail in table .
The purposes of RSS are for news or notification
(43%), new books (25%) and information push for
commercial databases information (21%), user
information (7%) and subject-specific information
(4%). Only Xiamen University Knowledge
Resource Portal applied RSS feeds to push
subject-specific information which covers 25 kinds
of customized information such as the
encyclopedic, higher education and laws and
regulations. Only Shanghai Jiaotong University
and Xiamen University provided personal borrow
situation feeds through RSS.
• User interfaces of RSS service. Whether users
could use RSS feeds effectively and conveniently
or not greatly depends on the design of user
interfaces of RSS service. The results of an
analysis of RSS user interfaces show two thirds of
libraries provide users the instruction manuals
which offer the definition and the how-to-manuals
of RSS feeds. Some libraries such as the Xiamen
University and Sun Yat-sen University library
applied the screen capturers to facilitate the
instruction step by step. The other 5 libraries not
providing how-to-manuals just provide the icon of
RSS and users could get the RSS feeds directly
after a click. It’s necessary to provide a link to
RSS reader downloading service. There has been
60 percent of the libraries offer this kind of
service. The sources of RSS feeds are classified on
some library websites, and users could browse to
select proper sources among them. Tsinghua
University library divides its sources of RSS feeds
into four parts. Except foreign language new
books notices, all other three parts are further
divided to facilitate users choose among them.
Meanwhile, users can copy the OPML icon to
subscribe to all the information belonging to that
part. Shanghai Jiaotong University Library
provides special RSS service, which offers the
feeds through IM services such as MSN and Skype
besides general subscription allowing users much
more availability and convenience.
2) Application status of IM
IM is an integral tool for reference services in terms of
chat services. It could improve the timeliness of user
interaction and the user’s initiative, and help libraries
investigate user’s requirement clearly and concisely in
time, which is helpful to answer the questions.
Table shows 32 percent of the surveyed libraries use
IM for reference services. IM is the second used, next to
136
RSS. The authors further investigate the application status
of IM in these 14 libraries.
CVRS (CALIS Virtual Reference System) is most
widely used in real-time reference software/platform (36
%). Only second to CVRS is other real-time reference
system (29%) developed by each library. The third is QQ
(21%) and the least was MSN (14%). QQ or MSN is not
widely applied due to their high requirements for library
staff and expenditure and technology.
There are 9 libraries (75%) provide direction including
applied software or system, servicing time, user
permissions and introduction of the content range of
reference consultation. 10 libraries (83%) don’t restrict
users permission. All the registered users can enjoy the
real-time reference service. Whereas the real-time
reference service is available for their own teachers,
students and campus net users only in the other 2 libraries
(17%).
There’re 11 libraries (92%) providing comprehensive
reference about how to use the library resources by means
of IM. Users could consult subject librarians in real time
via IM in 4 of the surveyed libraries (33%). Among which
Nanjing University library, Renmin University library and
Shandong University library (25%) provide both subject-
specific and comprehensive reference service.
3) Application status of Toolbar
Toolbars implemented as web browser plug-ins have
become popular in libraries, featuring simple operation,
long-time online, being compact and lightweight,
occupying less system resources, ease of use and being
powerful. Table displays 5 libraries (12%) have applied
toolbar so far. The function of toolbars is quite similar and
all these libraries provide download links and illustration
for installment. Once installed, toolbar users could search
libraries’ OPAC, electronic books, e-journals, lending
information or quick links to search tools they usually use
such as Baidu and Google, besides news and trends for
electronic resources, email notice and weather. Toolbar
realizes the idea that library is all around.
4) Application status of blog
Libraries could develop internal communication,
distribute internal information and provide thematic
information by virtue of blogs due to its interaction and
sociality.
Table shows blogs are not commonly applied among
libraries. Only 3 libraries namely Tsinghua University
Library, Shanghai Jiaotong University Library and Xiamen
University Knowledge Resource Portal implement blogs.
Tsinghua University Library constructed Journalism and
Communication Studies blog while Shanghai Jiaotong
University Library constructed 12 subject-specific blogs.
Xiamen University Knowledge Resource Portal
constructed Cyber (internet) culture and technology blog
and Library Science blog.
The entries of Shanghai Jiaotong University Library
and Xiamen University Knowledge Resource Portal blogs
could be tagged. Those tags could also be searched.
Shanghai Jiaotong University Library blog could display
those tags in tag cloud. All 3 library blogs used RSS to
feed blogs’ entries and can be updated in a timely manner.
Blogs’ entries could be browsed by topics or subjects.
These features were useful for users to retrieve information
in blogs.
 5) Other application status of Web 2.0 technology
In this paper, other applications of Web 2.0 technology
refer to Ajax, Tag/Folksonomy and Wiki. Table indicates
2 libraries used Ajax. The personalized homepage
developed by Tsinghua University Library employed Ajax
with which users could not only determine the positions of
each column on web pages according to personal interests
and habits, but also see the latest contents via automatic
refreshing. Beijing Normal University Library
implemented Ajax in e-journal list on its MetaLib. When
user input key words, the system would automatically
display the phrases that match them.
Tag allows users to generate content and classify it in
their own unique way, and folksonomy is a system of
classification derived from the practice and method of
collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and
categorize content. Table indicates Shanghai Jiaotong
University Library and Xiamen University Knowledge
Resource Portal utilized Tag/folksonomy. Shanghai
Jiaotong University Library allows tagging in their subject
blogs, and Xiamen University Knowledge Resource Portal
sets top rank tags in their OPAC besides in subject blogs,
and their tags can be ranked by popularity, displayed in tag
clouds, and searched by tags.
Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites,
to power community websites, and for note taking.
Table shows Wiki technology was used by Xiamen
University Knowledge Resource Portal. The authors can’t
visit it without right permission. We can see some
overview of it by other researchers [4]
4. CONCLUSION
It could be seen that at least two-thirds (20 out of 30)
of Chinese university libraries deployed one or more Web
2.0 technologies; only one-tenth adopting 4 kinds of Web
2.0 technologies; RSS is applied most widely and Wiki the
least. In a word, the application of Web 2.0 is at the stage
of ideology popularization and functionality exploration.
The reasons lie in the following aspects:
1) Some problems of technology application
There is little relevance among each Web 2.0
technology, and there is no successful paradigm and
standard to guide the selection, integration and adoption of
them to improve the library performance. It takes time to
develop and apply web 2.0 when financial support from
libraries is limited in a time of finance strain.
TABLE I. GENERAL WEB 2.0 APPLICATION INDEXES IN TOP 30 CHINESE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
Web 2.0 technologies
RSS
University libraries
Peking University
Tsinghua University ¥ ¥
Fudan University ¥ ¥
Shanghai Jiaotong University ¥ ¥
Nanjing University
Beijing Normal University ¥ ¥
Sun Yat-sen University ¥ 1
Renmin University of China
2) The shortcomings of librarians’ values and quality
Only librarians accept the Web 2.0 and grasp the
relevant technology and communication skill can Web 2.0
application be put into practice. What libraries should do is
to pay great effort to train librarians to assure that they can
use general web 2.0 fluently.
3) Lack of marketing
It’s hard to sustain a service if it is not known by users,
however advanced it is. To survive, libraries must market
it by all possible means.
4) Inadequacy of users’ information literacy
After the adoption of web 2.0 technologies, libraries
must offer a series of user education which improve users’
knowledge about them and skills of using them by all
possible means. Only when users’ information literacy is
improved can they use libraries resources more fluently.
In conclusion, according to the results, the application
of Web 2.0 in library has gained much promising
achievement, but there is still a long way to go to
popularize the Web 2.0 theory and application in libraries.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This paper is a research result of National Social
Science Fund (Project Name: Study of User- Participated
Library Information Organization Patterns. Project No.
09BTQ013), and also a research result of Humanities and
Social Sciences, which was supported by the Ministry of
Education of P. R. China (Project Name: Study of Library
Knowledge Architecture and Services Based on
Knowledge Innovation, Project No. 08JA870012).
REFERENCES
[1] Tim O’Reilly (2009). “What is Web 2.0”. Available at:
http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
(accessed 1 March 2009).
[2] Fan Bingsi (2005). “Unscramble professionalism and core
capability”. Library Journal, Vol. 24, No. 12, pp.2-4(in
Chinese).
[3] Research Center for Chinese Science Evaluation (2009).
“Ranking list of top 30 key universities in China”.
Available at: http://edu.sina.com.cn/gaokao/2009-01-
13/1716183683.shtml (accessed 1 March 2009).
[4] Liu Songtao, Zhu Zhongming(2007). “Research on the
application of WIKI in libraries”. Library Theory and
Practice, No. 1, pp.85-86(in Chinese).
Podcast/ Application
Wiki Blog Tag IM Toolbar Ajax
Vodcast Index
¥ ¥ 2
¥ ¥ ¥ 5
2
¥ ¥ ¥ 5
¥ 1
¥ 3
¥ 1
137
 Nankai University ¥ 1
University of Science and Technology of China ¥ 1
Shandong University ¥ 1
Xi’an Jiaotong University ¥ ¥ 2
Xiamen University ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ 5
Harbin Institute of Technology ¥ 1
Beihang University ¥ ¥ 2
Tongji University ¥ ¥ 2
East China Normal University ¥ ¥ 2
Southeast University ¥ ¥ 2
Dalian University of Technology ¥ 1
Northwest Polytechnical University ¥ 1
Hunan University ¥ 1
Total Index 15 1 3 2 14 0 5 2 42
Note: 9 libraries (Zhejiang University Library, Wuhan University Library, Library of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Sichuan University Library, Jilin University Library, Tianjin
University Library, Central South University Library, China Agricultural University Library, South China University of Technology Library) which applied none of these web 2.0 technologies were not
listed in Table .

TABLE II. AN ANALYSIS OF TOP 30 CHINESE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES RSS SERVICE

RSS
News
service New books Commercial databases Subject-specific User information
or notifications
University notifications information push information push push
information push
library
Tsinghua University ¥ ¥ ¥
Fudan University ¥ ¥ ¥
Shanghai Jiaotong University ¥ ¥
Beijing Normal University ¥
Sun Yat-sen University ¥ ¥ ¥
Nankai University ¥
Xi’an Jiaotong University ¥
Xiamen University ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥
Harbin Institute of Technology ¥
Beihang University ¥
Tongji University ¥ ¥
East China Normal University ¥ ¥ ¥
Southeast University ¥
Dalian University of Technology ¥
Northwest Polytechnical
¥
University
Total index (the percentage it
12 (43%) 7 (25%) 6 (21%) 1 (4%) 2 (7%)
accounts for)

138