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Explore current knowledge and potential advancements in understanding user behavior in digital libraries. Discover insights on users' preferences, behaviors, and electronic vs. print resource utilization to enhance user experience and engagement. Uncover unanswered questions and the importance of adapting systems to diverse user needs.
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What We Know About User Behavior Carol Tenopir, University of Tennessee ctenopir@utk.edu
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 Resources: An Overview and Analysis of Recent Research Studies www.clir.org/pub/reports/pub120/pub120.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 Usage Opinions, preferences (individual) Critical incident (readings), Experimental Usage logs
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 What Conclusions Can You Draw? • 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)
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?