College Library Network Space Link Characteristics

A Library is "a university without walls", and the library website can be called "a library without walls." With the advent of the Internet age, people often get the first impression of a library through its website. In the online world, the library of a university is mirrored by the website of it, which is not only the second class of students, but also a leader of the campus culture and the organizer of information. It also represents our academic standards and plays as a window for academic exchange. The library websites of all universities formed a special cyberspace. Based on the study of link characteristics of university library cyberspace, we can tap the exchange feature of the network under the website links. In summary, the exploration of the characteristics of website links plays an extremely important theoretical and practical role on the website construction of university libraries and the further development of Chinese libraries.This study is a combination of theoretical and empirical research. Based on the current domestic and oversea studies, we studied the link characteristics of university library cyberspace in six chapters by using some famous university library websites both at home and abroad as the research object. Chapter one describes the research background and significance of the study, reviews the research status of the link analysis at home and abroad, and further introduces the content and method of this paper. Chapter two describes the relevant theories of the Web and the link analysis (including Web structure, the concept of link analysis, research tools and methods, etc.). In chapter three, ten indexes on link characteristics about the sizes, link numbers and impacts of 40 university library websites sampled from 93 universities in China and America are studied. Meanwhile, with a detailed statistical analysis, the link characteristics of university library cyberspace are further clarified. Chapter four collects co-link data of 30 selected university library websites using Yahoo!. Then Clustering analysis, Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) analysis and Network Visualization analysis are used to analyze the structure of the university library cyberspace and its causes. Chapte fiver chooses the library websites of 43 "985 Project" universities in China and 30 renowned in American as the research object, obtaining the raw data by the use of specific search engines on the Internet. In light of the detailed statistical analysis and cluster analysis on indexes of the web links of Chinese university libraries, a comprehensive research is conducted from such aspects as the number and attribution of links, the website influence, link type, spatial connectivity, the consistency of the link characteristics, etc, and advices are further proposed for university library construction of China. The last chapter summarizes this thesis and point out the further research. Although the theoretical and applied research of link analysis at home and abroad has made great achievements in both scope and depth, now most of the applications of link analysis on the library websites (especially the university library websites) are concentrated on the website evaluation. This thesis makes a detailed interpretation on the following four aspects, namely the sample selection, the original data acquisition, data processing and the statistical and analysis of data. Based on the analysis and processing of the indexes on link characteristics of library cyberspace, such as basic indexes, the frequency of co-link and interlinking, a more detailed argument of the link characteristics of library cyberspace is made by means of descriptive statistical analysis, cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling analysis, etc., and the link structure of the university library cyberspace is further shown by method of visualization. This thesis, from the perspective of cyberspace links, supplies us with the reference index, data and results, which can be used for the construction of university library website, as well as the China's library development.