The Whys & Hows of Students & Faculty Finding What They Want Insights from interviews* Iowa OCLC...

The Whys & Hows of Students & Faculty Finding What They Want

Insights from interviews*

Iowa OCLC Users Group ConferenceMay 27, 2005

Lynn Silipigni Connaway, OCLCChandra Prabha, OCLC

Brenda Dervin, OSU

*IMLS Grant


• Project funded by:– Institute of Museum and Library

Services $480,543 grant to Ohio State University

– Ohio State University (OSU)$209,340 in kind contribution

– Online Computer Library Center (OCLC)$319,412 in kind contribution


Project Phases

Project durationCalendar years, 2004 and 2005

Four phases:I. Literature reviews and dialogueII. Sense-making surveys: online & phoneIII. Focus group interviewsIV. Structured observations


Study Populations

• 44 colleges and universities• 100 mile radius from Columbus• 400 informants– 100 each

• Faculty• Graduate students• Undergraduate students• netLibrary users

• Samples, stratified by Carnegie Institutional Class Codes

Input from users


Focus Group Interviews

– 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, professors, colleagues, etc.



– Have there been times when you did not use a library (university/college, public, etc.) and used other sources instead?



– Think of an academic situation where you needed answers or solutions and you did a thorough search (you did not take the first answer that you found). Describe the situation.



– If you had a magic wand, what would your ideal information systems and services provide? How would you go about using the information systems and services? When? Where? How?

Input from librarians


Project Dialogues and Librarian Surveys

– Local Advisory Committee

– National Advisory Committee

– OCLC Members Council

– OCLC Board of Trustees


Project Dialogues

• Library director or representative from each of the 44 academic institutions

• Library director or representative from geographically contingent public libraries

• 79 were invited

• 31 participated


Online Survey

• OCLC Members Council and Board of Trustees– 126 online surveys distributed– 34 responses = 27% response rate

Common Threads in Librarian Responses


Information needed for development of user-centered services and collections

– Who are the users?– Where are they getting their information?– Why don’t users think of the library first?


Biggest challenges of the advance of electronic information systems

– Too much information, too many choices– Not knowing users’ expectations and needs– Off-site users


Biggest challenges (continued)

– Non-standard search interfaces– User training– Designing systems for users – not librarians– Competing with Google, Amazon, Ask Jeeves…


Differences between how practitioners and researchers look at users

– Researchers ask why questions– Practitioners are interested in how questions

– Researchers see users in abstract– Practitioners see users in real-time

– Pursue collaborative research• Make practitioners an integral part of

research


Differences (continued)

– Overwhelming affirmative response• Theory vs. practice• “Ivory tower” vs. “real world”• Researchers’ general approach vs.

practitioners’ individualized approach• Researchers – “unreality paint”


• Continue to analyze data

• Write and submit for publication– Literature Reviews– Reports of findings

END NOTES This presentation is one of the outcomes from the

project “Sense-Making the Information Confluence: The Whys and Hows of College and University User Satisficing of Information Needs." Funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Ohio State University, and OCLC, Online Computer Library Center, the project is being implemented by Brenda Dervin (Professor of Communication and Joan N. Huber Fellow of Social & Behavioral Science, Ohio State University) as Principal Investigator; and Lynn Silipigni Connaway (OCLC Consulting Research Scientist III) and Chandra Prabha (OCLC Senior Research Scientist), as Co-Investigators. More information can be obtained at: http://imlsosuoclcproject.jcomm.ohio-state.edu/

http://imlsosuoclcproject.jcomm.ohio-state.edu/

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