Bridging the Gap: Encouraging Engagement with Library Services and Technologies

The world’s libraries. Connected.

Getting off the Island: Collaborating to Create Boundless Collections October 15, 2013

Presented by

Bridging the Gap Encouraging Engagement with Library Services & Technologies

Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ph. D., Senior Research Scientist, OCLC

in partnership with


Evolution of User Behavior

• Previously:

• Institutionally-provided resources & technology

• Local infrastructure

• User built workflow around the library

• Currently:

• Attention scarce, resources abundant

• Free sources of information

• Outside the institution

(Dempsey 2008)

(Dempsey 2012)

#InsightSeries


Outside-In & Inside-Out: Discovery and Discoverability

• Outside-in

• Acquired books, journals,

databases from external systems

• Provided discovery systems for

local constituency

• Inside-out

• Now a producer of a range of

resources

• Digitized images, special

collections, learning & research

materials, research data,

administrative records

• Promote discoverability of

institutional resources

(Dempsey 2012)

#InsightSeries


84% of users began

information

search with a

search engine

How many began their search on a library

website?

1% This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Unported License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

(Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research 2008)

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0


25% 13%

Americans who have

visited a library website

(past 12 months)

Those who used a

handheld device to

access library website

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Unported License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

“Looking and reading an entire book takes too long

when the specific information can be gained online

in a matter of minutes.”

(US, Age 38) (De Rosa 2005)

(Zickuhr, Rainie and Purcell 2013)

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0


Current Environment

• Challenges

• Budget cuts

• High retirement rates

• Hiring freezes

• Opportunity

• Best value for most use

• Understand how, why, &

under what

circumstances

individuals use systems

& services

• Promote value of library

#InsightSeries


Importance of Assessment

“Librarians are increasingly called upon to document

and articulate the value of academic and research

libraries and their contribution to institutional mission

and goals.”

(ACRL Value of Academic Libraries 2010, 6)

#InsightSeries


Why Assessment?

• Answers questions:

• What do users/stakeholders want & need?

• How can services/programs better meet needs?

• Is what we do working?

• Could we do better?

• What are problem areas?

• Traditional stats don‟t tell whole story

#InsightSeries


Assessment Defined

Process of…

• Defining

• Selecting

• Designing

• Collecting

• Analyzing

• Interpreting

• Using information to increase service/program

effectiveness

Interpreting

Analyzing

Collecting

#InsightSeries


User-centered data

collection &

assessment


Surveys

#InsightSeries


Example: WorldCat Usability Survey

• Paper or Online (e.g., Survey Monkey)

• Consider order of questions

• Be specific

• Introduce sections

• Keep it simple

• Pre-test!

(Connaway and Wakeling 2012)

21 focus group interviews with:

• 61 Librarians

• 40 Students

• 10 Booksellers

• 7 Historians

#InsightSeries


Individual

Interviews

#InsightSeries


Example: Digital Visitors & Residents Participant Questions

1. Describe the things you enjoy doing

with technology and the web each

week.

2. Think of the ways you have used

technology & the web for your

studies. Describe a typical week.

3. Think about the next stage of your

education. Tell me what you think

this will be like.

(White and Connaway 2011)

#InsightSeries


Example: Digital Visitors & Residents Participant Questions

4. Think of a time when you had a situation where you

needed answers or solutions and you did a quick search

and made do with it. You knew there were other sources

but you decided not to use them. Please include sources

such as friends, family, teachers, coaches, etc.

5. Have there been times when you were told to use a library

or virtual learning environment (or learning platform), &

used other source(s) instead?

6. If you had a magic wand, what would your ideal way of

getting information be? How would you go about using the

systems and services? When? Where? How?

(Connaway and Radford 2005-2007)

(Dervin, Connaway and Prabha 2003-2005)

#InsightSeries


Focus Group

Interviews

#InsightSeries


Example: Focus Group Interviews

Uses

• Resource discovery

• Determining location of items

• Academic / professional

Strengths

• Global scope

• Content > functionality

• Interface = positive

• Discrepancy between

students and librarians

How & why do users employ

?

Challenges

• Search functionality

• Duplicate records & lack

of a work-level

• “Find a copy” functioned

poorly outside US

• Dead links

• Marketing WorldCat

(Connaway and Wakeling 2012)

#InsightSeries


Diaries

#InsightSeries


Example: Digital Visitors and Residents Diaries


Findings

#InsightSeries


Sources are overwhelmingly digital


•Visit only a few

minutes

•Shorter sessions

•Basic search

•View few pages

E-journals

(Wong, Stelmaszewska, Bhimani, Barn and Barn 2009)


Online resources •99.5% use journals as

primary resource

•Google, Web of Science,

PubMed, Science Direct,

JSTOR

(Research Information Network 2006)


• Power browsing

• Scan small chunks of

information

• View first few pages

• No real reading

• Squirreling

• Short basic searches

• Download content for

later use

• Differ with discipline

Information-Seeking Behavior

(Research Information Network 2006)

(Consortium of University Research Libraries, and Research

Information Network 2007)

(Connaway and Dickey 2010)

#InsightSeries


The word “librarian” only

mentioned once in original

interviews by Emerging Stage

participants as a source of

information

One participant referred to “a lady

in the library who helps you find

things”

(USU5, Male, Age 19, Systems Engineering)

#InsightSeries


Mobile Access


Databases • Electronic databases

not perceived as library

sources

• Frustration locating &

accessing full-text

copies


Social Media

Need to be present & available in

spaces where users live or dwell

(Connaway, Lanclos , and Hood 2013)

#InsightSeries


“I get on Twitter a whole bunch. It‟s

Twitter or Facebook are what I usually

use the most to talk to my friends.” (USS1, Female, Age 17, High School Student)

#InsightSeries


Can‟t live without…

“I think my phone….I just – it‟s just the easiest

way to keep in contact with people. And also with

phones these days it‟s like a mini computer to be

honest, Smartphones so yes.” (UKS7, Female, Age 17, Secondary School Student)

#InsightSeries


Course Management Systems vs. the Open Web

Open web outnumbers CMS (Connaway, Lanclos, and Hood 2013)

“I felt that they used limited

resources and did not research

the topic other than using the

internet. I can do an effective

Google search myself and come

up with the same resources.” (UOS-65381, Female, Age Range 56-65)

#InsightSeries


“It‟s like a taboo I guess with all teachers, they just all

say – you know, when they explain the paper they

always say, „Don‟t use Wikipedia.‟” (USU7, Female, Age 19, Political Science)

The Learning Black Market

#InsightSeries


Reliability

• Concerned with selecting

reliable sources

• Websites that end in .edu,

.ac., or .gov

• Appearance of site

determines reliability

• Repetition is measure of

reliability

Evaluation, Authority, and Legitimacy

#InsightSeries


“It depends, it depends who‟s made the website or

what I have been told about the website or whether I

know about it at all. But it sounds silly but sometimes

you can just tell whether a website looks reliable or

not depending on how professional that looks and

who‟s written it.”

(UKU6, Female, Age 19, History)

#InsightSeries


Convenience

(Connaway, Lanclos, and Hood 2013)

Convenience trumps all other reasons for selecting and using a source

#InsightSeries


Recommendations

#InsightSeries


• Anticipate/ understand the

user‟s needs

• Search filters

• Customize range of time

• Search from mobile phone

• “Smart prefix search”

Smart Searching

#InsightSeries


Convenient and Familiar Interface Designs

#InsightSeries


• Available 24/7

• Digital & face-to-face communities are

critical

• Social media tools can be used to

build relationships

• Engage in interesting discussions &

inventive strategies for making

collections come to life using social

media

Embedding & Engaging in the Individuals‟ Networks

(Connaway, Lanclos , and Hood 2013)

#InsightSeries


• Social networks formed around

social objects

• Music, photos, videos, links

• Reviewing

• Tagging

• Commenting

• Rating

Community is Content

(Dempsey 2012)

#InsightSeries


“By focusing on relationship building instead

of service excellence, organizations can

uncover new needs and be in position to make

a stronger impact.” (Matthews 2012)

#InsightSeries


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http://informationr.net/ir/18-1/infres181.html





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References

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Technology Abstracts with Full Text.

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Center’s Internet & American Life Project.


Questions?

Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ph.D.

[email protected]

@LConnaway

mailto:[email protected]

Bridging the Gap: Encouraging Engagement with Library Services and Technologies

Education

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surveysthe worlds libraries

research libraries

diariesthe worlds lib

information search

specific information

research data

systems services