Case study: the health SmartLibrary experiences in web personalization and customization at the Galter health sciences library, Northwestern University.

QUESTION: How can the user's access to health information, especially full-text articles, be improved? The solution is building and evaluating the Health SmartLibrary (HSL). SETTING: The setting is the Galter Health Sciences Library, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. METHOD: The HSL was built on web-based personalization and customization tools: My E-Resources, Stay Current, Quick Search, and File Cabinet. Personalization and customization data were tracked to show user activity with these value-added, online services. MAIN RESULTS: Registration data indicated that users were receptive to personalized resource selection and that the automated application of specialty-based, personalized HSLs was more frequently adopted than manual customization by users. Those who did customize customized My E-Resources and Stay Current more often than Quick Search and File Cabinet. Most of those who customized did so only once. CONCLUSION: Users did not always take advantage of the services designed to aid their library research experiences. When personalization is available at registration, users readily accepted it. Customization tools were used less frequently; however, more research is needed to determine why this was the case.

Evaluating the Health SmartLibrary.

The Health SmartLibrary (HSL), supported by the National Library of Medicine (Information Systems grant # 1 G08 LM07051-01A1), is a web-based system designed to target resources relevant to the users' information needs. Faculty and librarians collaborated to build tools that would make access to information resources easy and efficient. These tools include current awareness; a metasearch engine; a file cabinet; personalization features; and discipline-based resource collections.