Categorical relevance judgment

Financial literacy resources in US public libraries: website analysis

Purpose

This article explores the financial literacy resources patrons can discover and/or access on the webpages of the largest 48 US public libraries in order to assess the strength of public libraries' current support to patrons seeking assistance with personal financial matters.

Design/methodology/approach

The author completed a website analysis of the largest 48 US public libraries, as defined by the four sets of criteria in the American Library Association (ALA) publication. Website analysis was completed via a standardized checklist assessment covering full-site searching, catalog content, the availability of relevant guides and/or workshops, and any other relevant online resources.

Findings

Public libraries provide many resources relevant to patrons searching for personal finance topics, but some of these resources are not ideally highlighted on libraries' websites. Site search tools are generally less efficient than catalog search tools. Only half of the studied libraries have relevant online guides, but all libraries have some relevant online resources.

Originality/value

While there are a number of research articles exploring how public libraries support financial literacy in their communities, there has not yet been an in-depth exploration of how public libraries support this literacy, specifically through the materials highlighted and/or available via their websites. This research addresses this gap in the literature.

Evaluating Local Multilingual Health Care Information Environments on the Internet: A Pilot Study

For foreign-born populations, difficulty in finding health care information in their primary language is a structural barrier to accessing timely health care. While such information may be available at a national level, it may not always be relevant or appropriate to the living situations of these people. Our objective was to explore the quality of online multilingual health information environments by pilot-testing a framework for assessing such information at the prefectural level in Japan. The framework consisted of five health care domains (health system, hospitals, emergency services, medical interpreters, and health insurance). Framework scores varied considerably among prefectures; many resources were machine-translated. These scores were significantly associated with foreign population proportion and the number of hospitals in each prefecture. Our multilingual health care information environment (MHCIE) framework provides a measure of health access inclusivity, which has not been quantified before. It is adaptable to other international contexts, but further validation is required.