132 ISBN: 978-163-10245-6-6 CONCEPTUAL APPROACH OF WEB CONTENT ANALYSIS: A TOOL TO ANALYSES LIBRARY WEBSITE TO IMPROVE THEIR WEB BASED SERVICES IN ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS Ksh. Krishna Devi | Research Scholar | DLIS | Mizoram University | Aizawl | krsna.devi@gmail.com Dr. Manoj Kumar Verma | Assistant Professor | DLIS | Mizoram University | Aizawl | manojdlisbhu@gmail.com ABSTRACT In the age of ICT, the World Wide Web (WWW) becomes the most important communication tool for accessing and sharing information on the internet. Now all the academic institutions having their own websites and they are offing a wide range of information resources and services through website. Library is a gateway of knowledge in academic institutions and library website/web pages are the primary source of information of an institution where they disseminate and provide access to information to the users. It becomes a trend for the library users to visit the library website instead of visiting physically. So, the library website must maintain regularly to providing useful information and it is also required to evaluate them timely and keep up with the changing pace of time. Academic library websites provide information about library and library services therefore it is necessary that evaluation of library website is very necessary with some prefixed parameters. Thus web content analysis became significant area of research in field of library and information science now a day. This paper discussed about conceptual approach of web content analysis, it process and importance of web content analysis. Keywords: Content analysis; web content; library website; library webpage INTRODUCTION The internet and websites became one of the most popular communication tools to the world in the age of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The World Wide Web (www) which is the most popular part of the Internet is the result of the project initiated by CERN High Energy Physics Lab in Switzerland in 1990 for allowing the researchers to share information with each other. The internet has made it available to individuals all the information globally at just one click. So, there is an extreme need for developing and updating the websites. The development of technology has made a tremendous change in every sphere of life. So, there is always a need of developing the libraries to cope up with the pace of time. In the present era, people prefer browsing websites and collecting all the necessary information at one time rather than visiting physically, which is yet time saving too. Henceforth, the responsibility of website developer has become more important in updating the correct data so that it could reach in every nook and corner of the world. The library website plays an important role of an institution. The websites make it available all the basic information about the library, like when established, the librarian, their staff, library hours, etc. It also gives information about the services provided by the institution as well as its collections. The library website should maintain properly and make it interactive one so that the information seekers can easily get the information of their needs without any hindrance. For making the correct and the latest information available to the information seekers, it is always required to keep the website updating. It is essential to have an idea about the dimensions of online interactivity so that websites can be designed and developed in such a way so as to facilitate interaction between the website and library users (Sarkar, 2012). Web The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee, who was a software engineer at CERN high energy physics lab in Geneva, Switzerland, in the year 1989, about 20 years after the first connection was established International Conference on Contemporary Innovations in Library Information Science, Social Science & Technology for Virtual World ISBN: 978-163-10245-6-6 133 over what is today known as Internet. Tim had specified the three fundamental technologies that remain the foundation of today’s WEB: a) HTML: The full form of HTML is Hyper Text Markup Language. It is the set of codes inserted in a file intended for display on a World Wide Web browser page. It tells the Web browser how to display a Web page’s words and images for the user, including the ability to format documents and link to other documents and resources. b) URI: It stands for Uniform Resource Identifier. It is the way to identify the contents whether it is a page of text, a video or sound clip, a still or animated image, or a program. The most common form of URI is the web page address, which is a particular form or subset of URI called a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). c) HTTP: It stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. It is the set of rules for transferring files (text, graphic images, sound, video, and other multimedia files) on the World Wide Web. It is an application protocol that runs on top of the TCP/IP suite of protocols. It allows for the retrieval of linked resources from across the Web. The Web consists of an immense variety of types of materials whose variety is best understood along two dimensions. First, the Web itself is a medium and not simply content via numerous protocols and it is also a container for content and also presents it to viewers. Secondly, and further unlike the world of analog materials, the very definition of media for storing the Web is open to question (Jones & Johnson, 2006). The Web can take advantage of computer networking, to allow researchers to share information with one another. Content The actual meaning of the content can be clearly understood with the help of the following definitions extracted from the dictionaries and the encyclopedia: The Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Library and Information Science defines “content” as the essential matter or substance of a written work or discourse, as opposed to its form or style. In a more general sense, all the ideas, topics, facts, or statements contained in a book or other written work. The Dictionary of Library and Information Systems (2005) elaborates the meaning of content as a “table of contents” but seldom used in this form. 1. A list of the ‘preliminaries’ and chapter headings of a book in their correct order, or of articles in a periodical, with the number of the pages on which they begin. 2. A list of the musical works contained in a printed collection of music or in an album of recordings or of those recorded on a single record or cassette. 3. A list of items recorded on videotape. The Harrod’s ibrarians’ Glossary and Reference Book (2005) further explains the meaning of content as “the intrinsic information and data stored in and communicated by any document – printed or electronic – that make it useful and usable to End users. It is distinguished from the printed format, distribution channel or network that carries it. Content can include all forms of textual material and manuscripts, sound, moving and still images, bibliographic datasets, statistical and other forms of data. Web Content On the web, we define content as the topics, ideas, facts, or statements in a webpage or website. Content is published in the form of texts, images, audio and video. Content serve four main purposes: to inform, to educate, to entertain and to connect people. Web content is the most important reason that people visit to the Web pages. There are essentially two types of web content; Text and Multimedia. Text is the written content which is on the page. The textual web content has Figure-1: Web content access by computer (Source:http://web-conferencing.no1reviews.com/buying-guide.html)