A Comparative Study on the Central Library Websites of Iranian State Universities in HTML and Dublin Core Metadata Element Usage

Recent progress in providing innovative solutions in the organization of electronic resources and research in this area shows the global trend in the use of new strategies such as metadata to facilitate descripting, locating, organizing, and searching resources in the web environment. In this context, library metadata standards are of great importance. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to compare the central library websites of Iranian state universities in terms of HTML and Dublin Core metadata elements usage in 2011. This was an applied–descriptive study. The data collection tool was the researcher constructed checklist. The statistical population included 98 websites of Iranian state universities of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOHME), and the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology. The sampling method used was census. Data were collected by observing and referring directly to every website. Data analysis was performed by descriptive statistics, and the graphs were prepared by Excel software. The findings of study indicated that none of the websites have used Dublin Core metadata. Some of them have used corresponding elements of HTML and Dublin Core. In the MOHME the corresponding elements of description and keywords (both 56%) were most used. In the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology the element of keywords (45%) and description (39%) were most used. However, HTML meta tag elements were mostly used in the library websites studied. The most-used elements of HTML were keywords and description (both 56%) and the least-used elements were date and formatter (0%). It seems we can expect both ministries to use Dublin Core standard more in the future for designing these websites. As library's websites are scientific web pages, special attention should be paid to designing them, in order to help researchers in accessing information resources faster and more accurately. Moreover, the role of librarians in the awareness of designers and developers of library websites in using metadata elements and applying their standards should not be overlooked.