Web Metrics for Library and Information Professionals

Library and information professionals increasingly need to create, manage, and monitor a wide range of online content, from a library’s social media account and web sites to the new and traditional research outputs that funders expect to be made available openly online. It is important that they understand the new opportunities that web metrics provide for measuring the impact of an individual or an organization’s content. This book provides an up-to-date introduction to a wide range of web metrics, with practical examples of how they can b best put to use. The book will begin with a wider discussion on the role of metrics, and how web metrics overlap with associated concepts with a longer library and information science history such as scientometrics and bibliometrics. It will explore the latest tools that are available, many of which have changed since the publication of the first edition, as well as how we can expect the field to change in the future with machine intelligence and artificial intelligence becoming more widely available. This new edition has been extended and updated throughout to reflect the rapidly changing nature of the field, and has been modified to incorporate important changes that have taken place in the information ecosystem since the first edition: increased use (and misuse) of metrics within institutions, the rapid growth of interest in altmetrics; the expanding potential of artificial intelligence; and the restrictions imposed by increased legislation in the data realm are all covered. As well as updates to the user-friendly tools and resources that are available, there is also a greater emphasis on the programming libraries that are available, as library and information professionals are increasingly willing to start engaging with data that is available programmatically. After reading the book the information professional will not only be better placed to adopt web metrics in their workplace, but also be critical of the misuse of web metrics.