Minimal Interaction Between American Public and University Libraries Found in Website Link Analysis

Rong Tang and Mike Thelwall's A Hyperlink Analysis of U.S. Public and Academic Libraries' Web Sites, 78 Library Quarterly 419, (October 2008) [PDF,subscription required] reports on patterns of links from and to the websites of 100 U.S. academic and public libraries. Public libraries link largely to and attract links mainly from the .com and .org domains. Academic libraries link to a variety of domains, including .edu, .com, .org, and some overseas sites, and draw inlinks mainly from .edu and .com sites. The authors conclude that there is little interaction between US public libraries and U.S. universities, and this calls attention to the need for more collaboration between the two types of organizations. [JH]