System Statuses in Academic Libraries: Increasing Transparency and Improving the User Experience

Abstract "is facebook down" trended on Google on October 4, 2021, when Facebook became temporarily globally unavailable. Web users proactively seek information when they encounter issues online. System status dashboards are one way libraries can leverage this behavior to share changes to resources or services and improve transparency, reference services, and the user experience. The University at Albany Libraries Discovery Services Librarian and User Experience Librarian implemented Springshare’s System Status Management tool to share system statuses with library staff and the campus community. The institutional context, implementation, and impact are described in this article. The authors reviewed Association of Research Libraries members’ library websites to investigate if and how system statuses are being used to communicate with patrons. Results indicate that the majority of libraries reviewed do not employ a dedicated system status dashboard to share information with their constituents, but may use other types of alerts instead.