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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?
