What We Know About User Behavior

Carol Tenopir, University of Tennessee

ctenopir@utk.edu

The Picture of our Users

Users of Digital Information

• What we know about user behavior

• What we aren’t sure about

• What we might know in the future

Use and Users of Electronic Library Use and Users of Electronic Library Resources: An Overview and Resources: An Overview and Analysis of Recent Research Studies Analysis of Recent Research Studies www.clir.org/pub/reports/pub120/pubwww.clir.org/pub/reports/pub120/pub120.pdf120.pdf

Tier 1 Studies

• SuperJournal

• DFL/CLIR/Outsell

• HighWire eJUST

• Pew/OCLC-Harris/Urban Libraries Council

• OhioLINK

• Tenopir & King

• LibQUAL+

• JSTOR

Tier 2 Studies

• Over 200 good studies in last decade

• One time studies, or one organization, or small scale

• Variety of methods

• Together build our knowledge of user behavior

Learning About Users and UsageOpinions, preferences (individual)

Usage logs Critical incident (readings), Experimental

What Conclusions Can You Draw?

• Usage logs• Interviews/surveys/

journals

• What groups do• Opinion, what individuals

say they do in general and why

• What individuals say they do specifically and why, readings

• What individuals do in a controlled setting and why

• Critical Incident

• Experimental

What We Know About Students

• They turn to Internet search engines first (instead of formal electronic sources)

• They feel confident about their searching ability

• They recognize not all Internet information is reliable

What We Know About Subject Experts

• Use of electronic vs. print and use patterns depend on subject discipline

• Read more and from a wider variety of sources than in the past

• Experts both browse and search, but searching is increasing

What We Know About All Users

• Use some print in addition to electronic sources

• Print things they want to spend time on

• Adopt electronic resources that are convenient and support their natural workflow

More Subtle Factors

• Situational/Contextual (Purpose/motivation)

• Individual Differences (Productivity, awards, degrees, etc.)

Unanswered Questions: Is there a difference based on:

• …gender?

• …date of birth?

• …culture and/or geographic location?

Some Examples From T&K data

• 18,000+ scientists and social scientists

• 1977 to present

• University and non-university workplaces

• Mostly North America

• Recent studies of Astronomers, Medical faculty, faculty and students at several universities

Importance to Purpose

• Subject experts use e-resources and read for many purposes—research and writing are ranked most important

• Older articles (more than 1 year) are ranked higher than current articles

• Articles from library collections (print or electronic) are ranked higher than others

Individual Differences

• No significant differences by year of last degree (derived age) for productive astronomers

• Significant differences by derived age for non-productive astronomers

• Significant differences by degree earned (medical faculty)

Astronomy Articles Read per Month vs. Productivity

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Non-Prod Average Productive

Awareness and Use of ADS by Productive PhD Astronomers

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Aware ADS Use ADS % Using

Young (<36)

Middle (36-50)

Old (>50)

Awareness and Use of ADS by not-Productive PhD Astronomers

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Aware ADS Use ADS % Using

Young (<36)

Middle (36-50)

Old (>50)

Educational Degree Print Electronic

M.D., only 33 1

Ph.D., only 18 17

Both M.D. and Ph.D. 1 0

Neither degree 4 0

Total 56 18

Format of Reading

Fundamental Questions

• How much should we depend on designing systems for the “average”user in our user group?

• Do we build for productive users?

• How much do we build to individual differences?

• Are the efforts to design customizable systems the answer?