Research on Web Portals in Library Environment: A Literature Review

This paper aims to provide an overview of web portal and its implication in libraries, which focuses on issues related to the library portals and importance of portals in a library environment. The review covers literature published in mainstream library and information science studies. The review was done on literature published in both academic and professional LIS journals and other documents. This review reveals that basically seven types of research are being done on library portals: 1) Evolution of library portals, 2) Role of Librarians in Library portals 3) Design of Library Portals 4) Library Portals and web 2.0 application and 5) Portal and Web-Enabled Library Services 6) Usability of Library portals and 7) Evaluation of Library portals. Predominantly this research is directed towards solving conflicts between Librarians and users of through the guidelines for effective design and services of library to cater the needs of users of modern era. However, very little research is devoted towards measuring the quality of library portals.