A user‐centred approach to the evaluation of Subject Based Information Gateways: case study SOSIG

There has been a massive increase in the amount of information available to people as a result of the Internet and information seekers are expected to be in the position to identify and evaluate this information according to their needs. As a response to this, Subject Based Information Gateways have been introduced providing people with an organised collection of digital information. An evaluation of the Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG), conducted by an online questionnaire, examines such issues as who the SOSIG users are, how frequently they use the service and what their reasons for using the service are.