Judging a book by its cover: interface elements that affect reader selection of ebooks

Digital library research has demonstrated the impact of content presentation on both search and reading behaviours. In this paper, we scrutinise the influence of ebook presentation on user behaviour, focussing on document thumbnails and the first page view. We demonstrate that flaws in presentation increase the volume of short time-span reading, and reduce the likelihood of long-span reading when compared to other documents. This reflects other patterns of information seeking behaviour that demonstrate increased short-term reading when information content is uncertain, and suggests an ineffective use of reader time on less useful content

Exploring the information behaviour of users of Welsh Newspapers Online through web log analysis

Purpose – Webometric techniques have been applied to many websites and online resources, especially since the launch of Google Analytics (GA). To date, though, there has been little consideration of information behaviour in relation to digitised newspaper collections. The purpose of this paper is to address a perceived gap in the literature by providing an account of user behaviour in the newly launched Welsh Newspapers Online (WNO). Design/methodology/approach – The author collected webometric data for WNO using GA and web server content logs. These were analysed to identify patterns of engagement and user behaviour, which were then considered in relation to existing information behaviour. Findings – Use of WNO, while reminiscent of archival information seeking, can be understood as centring on the web interface rather than the digitised material. In comparison to general web browsing, users are much more deeply engaged with the resource. This engagement incorporates reading online, but users’ information seeking utilises website search and browsing functionality rather than filtering in newspaper material. Information seeking in digitised newspapers resembles the model of the “user” more closely than that of the “reader”, a value-laden distinction which needs further unpacking. Research limitations/implications – While the behaviour discussed in this paper is likely to be more widely representative, a larger longitudinal data set would increase the study’s significance. Additionally, the methodology of this paper can only tell us what users are doing, and further research is needed to identify the drivers for this behaviour. Originality/value – This study provides important insights into the underinvestigated area of digitised newspaper collections, and shows the importance of webometric methods in analysing online user behaviour

What We Are Learning About the Diverse Backgrounds of Academic Library Users: An Overview of Research Designs and Methods in Information Behaviour Studies

Academic libraries increasingly serve a more diverse population of users not only in regard to race and ethnicity, but also to age, gender, language, sexual orientation, and national and cultural backgrounds. This papers reports the findings of the study that explored information behaviour research as a potential source of information about diversity of academic library users and examined the relationship between the use of different research designs and data collection methods and the information gathered about users’ diverse backgrounds. The study found that information behaviour research offers limited insight into the diversity of academic library users. The choice of a research design was not critical but the use of multiple data collection played a role in gathering information about culturally diverse users

A study of lawyers’ information behaviour leading to the development of two methods for evaluating electronic resources

In this thesis we examine the information behaviour displayed by a broad cross-section of academic and practicing lawyers and feed our findings into the development of the Information Behaviour (IB) methods - two novel methods for evaluating the functionality and usability of electronic resources. We captured lawyers’ information behaviour by conducting naturalistic observations, where we asked participants to think aloud whilst using existing resources to ‘find information required for their work.’ Lawyers’ information behaviours closely matched those observed in other disciplines by Ellis and others, serving to validate Ellis’s existing model in the legal domain. Our findings also extend Ellis’s model to include behaviours pertinent to legal information-seeking, broaden the scope of the model to cover information use (in addition to information-seeking) behaviours and enhance the potential analytical detail of the model through the identification of a range of behavioural ‘subtypes’ and levels at which behaviours can operate. The identified behaviours were used as the basis for developing two methods for evaluating electronic resources – the IB functionality method (which mainly involves examining whether and how information behaviours are currently, or might in future be, supported by an electronic resource) and the IB usability method (which involves setting users behaviour-focused tasks, asking them to think aloud whilst performing the tasks, and identifying usability issues from the think- aloud data). Finally the IB methods were themselves evaluated by stakeholders working for LexisNexis Butterworths – a large electronic legal resource development firm. Stakeholders were recorded using the methods and focus group and questionnaire data was collected, with the aim of ascertaining how usable, useful and learnable they considered the methods to be and how likely they would be to use them in future. Overall, findings were positive regarding both methods and useful suggestions for improving the methods were made

Contemporary spirituality, religion and information: An interpretivist investigation of meaning-making narratives, spiritual seeking concerns, and librarian attitudes

More than eight in ten people worldwide identify with a religious group. In addition, people often seek and use spiritual information despite having no formal religious status or affiliation. Spirituality is a prominent feature of several Western and Westernised information-based societies and cultures; however, people’s everyday spiritual information interactions remain poorly understood in information and library science research. To this end, this thesis seeks to understand the role of information in contemporary spiritual but religiously unaffiliated contexts. The thesis’ original contributions lie in three novel interpretivistic investigations conducted to understand 1) the motivations and information interactions of fifteen spiritual retreat residents in a religiously unaffiliated context, 2) insights of thirteen contemporary spiritual teachers and speakers about spiritual seeking concerns & patterns, and 3) two hundred and eighty-one US and UK practising librarians’ views and attitudes regarding spiritual needs and modern library provision. In addition, the investigations are contextualised and supported by a novel synthesis of the literature on spirituality and religion in information research. The investigations employ a qualitative sensibility and use secondary data (online video narratives), qualitative interviewing, and questionnaire techniques. Accordingly, the data (retreat residents’ video narratives, teachers’ and speakers’ interview transcripts and librarians’ questionnaire responses) are analysed thematically, and each investigation is presented as a chapter individually. A general discussion chapter then answers each investigation’s research questions, relates them to existing information science understandings and offers a preliminary conceptualisation of relationships between contemplative spiritual practices and information. Besides empirical contributions, this thesis demonstrates that secondary qualitative data analysis can be a helpful research approach during unexpected circumstances such as government-enforced physical distancing measures and worldwide pandemic-related lockdowns. Finally, this thesis helps facilitate transdisciplinary dialogue between contemplative studies and library and information science research and demonstrates that frameworks from other disciplines, such as psychology, sociology and nursing, can help structure and enrich information behaviour investigations and potentially contribute to interdisciplinary discussions and collaboration.More than eight in ten people worldwide identify with a religious group. In addition, people often seek and use spiritual information despite having no formal religious status or affiliation. Spirituality is a prominent feature of several Western and Westernised information-based societies and cultures; however, people’s everyday spiritual information interactions remain poorly understood in information and library science research. To this end, this thesis seeks to understand the role of information in contemporary spiritual but religiously unaffiliated contexts. The thesis’ original contributions lie in three novel interpretivistic investigations conducted to understand 1) the motivations and information interactions of fifteen spiritual retreat residents in a religiously unaffiliated context, 2) insights of thirteen contemporary spiritual teachers and speakers about spiritual seeking concerns & patterns, and 3) two hundred and eighty-one US and UK practising librarians’ views and attitudes regarding spiritual needs and modern library provision. In addition, the investigations are contextualised and supported by a novel synthesis of the literature on spirituality and religion in information research. The investigations employ a qualitative sensibility and use secondary data (online video narratives), qualitative interviewing, and questionnaire techniques. Accordingly, the data (retreat residents’ video narratives, teachers’ and speakers’ interview transcripts and librarians’ questionnaire responses) are analysed thematically, and each investigation is presented as a chapter individually. A general discussion chapter then answers each investigation’s research questions, relates them to existing information science understandings and offers a preliminary conceptualisation of relationships between contemplative spiritual practices and information. Besides empirical contributions, this thesis demonstrates that secondary qualitative data analysis can be a helpful research approach during unexpected circumstances such as government-enforced physical distancing measures and worldwide pandemic-related lockdowns. Finally, this thesis helps facilitate transdisciplinary dialogue between contemplative studies and library and information science research and demonstrates that frameworks from other disciplines, such as psychology, sociology and nursing, can help structure and enrich information behaviour investigations and potentially contribute to interdisciplinary discussions and collaboration

Towards a model of information behaviour of a information provider: a mixed methods study.

Not much is not known about the totality of information behaviours of information providers from among the plethora of library and information science literature. This research aims to describe, categorise and devise a representation of information workers experiences as they engage in information behaviours in a health information provider organisation in Scotland. The organisation is a typical example of an information services provider where decision makers constantly strive to improve the quality of their information outputs by attempting to understand the information behaviours of their employees and respond to changes in the external information environment. A model of information behaviour becomes a useful tool for understanding what goes on within the information provider organisation. With pragmatism as its philosophical tether, the qualitatively-driven sequential mixed methods study uses critical incident interviewing within Heideggerian phenomenology and then a questionnaire survey to capture value-adding information behaviours, feeling states as outcomes of information behaviour, and perceptions of internal impact of information behaviour. The research subjects are invited to participate in a respondent validation workshop where a model of provider information behaviour is co-created. The findings reveal 3 core information behaviour types (information acquisition behaviour, information production behaviour and information dissemination behaviour) and 2 associated information behaviour types (multitasking and collaborative information behaviours) in a non-linear relationship. Several positive and negative feelings are identified together with information workers perceptions of how their information behaviours impact on the internal information environment of their organisation. The core and associated information behaviours are further categorised and their subtypes are validated on returning to the research participants. Recommendations for practice and further research include introducing Web 2.0 technologies in the provider organisation to enhance information dissemination, reviewing the value of some information activities in the provider organisation, investigating the mechanism of the information behaviour trigger, and further research on the role of feelings and individual characteristics before and after information interactions. The findings provide insights of information interactions of an information provider that make a significant contribution to LIS knowledge

How local government policy workers use information: An interview study and design recommendations

Most information behaviour research focuses on information seeking and stops short of looking at what people do with information after they have found it. Furthermore, the information behaviour of local government policy workers has not been widely studied. We conducted semi-structured interviews with local government policy workers from UK local authorities and local government organisations. This was with the aim of examining how these policy workers use information to prepare documents. During the interviews, we asked the policy workers to demonstrate how they extracted information from source documents and how they made use of it. We found that the document preparation process involved three key phases: (1) information management (storing and recording information retrieved online for later use), (2) writing and editing (extracting information from source material and using it to support the writing process), and (3) review and sign-off (managing an iterative process of obtaining feedback from multiple stakeholders and making amendments). We discuss key challenges the interviewees faced during each of these phases and make recommendations for the design of future digital information environments aimed at providing holistic support for local government policy workers’ information use behaviour

Introduction : user studies for digital library development

Introductory chapter to the edited collection on user studies in digital library development. Contains a general introduction to the topic and biographical sketches of the contributors.peer-reviewe

A study of lawyers' information behaviour leading to the development of two methods for evaluating electronic resources

In this thesis we examine the information behaviour displayed by a broad cross-section of academic and practicing lawyers and feed our findings into the development of the Information Behaviour (IB) methods - two novel methods for evaluating the functionality and usability of electronic resources. We captured lawyers’ information behaviour by conducting naturalistic observations, where we asked participants to think aloud whilst using existing resources to ‘find information required for their work.’ Lawyers’ information behaviours closely matched those observed in other disciplines by Ellis and others, serving to validate Ellis’s existing model in the legal domain. Our findings also extend Ellis’s model to include behaviours pertinent to legal information-seeking, broaden the scope of the model to cover information use (in addition to information- seeking) behaviours and enhance the potential analytical detail of the model through the identification of a range of behavioural ‘subtypes’ and levels at which behaviours can operate. The identified behaviours were used as the basis for developing two methods for evaluating electronic resources – the IB functionality method (which mainly involves examining whether and how information behaviours are currently, or might in future be, supported by an electronic resource) and the IB usability method (which involves setting users behaviour-focused tasks, asking them to think aloud whilst performing the tasks, and identifying usability issues from the think-aloud data). Finally the IB methods were themselves evaluated by stakeholders working for LexisNexis Butterworths – a large electronic legal resource development firm. Stakeholders were recorded using the methods and focus group and questionnaire data was collected, with the aim of ascertaining how usable, useful and learnable they considered the methods to be and how likely they would be to use them in future. Overall, findings were positive regarding both methods and useful suggestions for improving the methods were made

Digital Ethnography as a Way to Explore Information Grounds on Twitter

Information grounds are social settings where information, people, and place come together to create information flow within a physical environment (Karen E. Pettigrew, 1998). Information grounds also facilitate the opportunistic discovery of information within social settings created temporarily by people gathered for some purpose other than seeking information, but the social environment stimulates spontaneous information sharing (K. E. Pettigrew, 1999), such as in hair salons, doctor's waiting rooms and other public places. Professional and scholarly use of social media is a rapidly emerging area of research. In this regard, qualitative analysis of data gathered from Twitter is a relatively unexplored area of Library and Information Science (LIS) research. This paper details the results of a qualitative study of Twitter using digital ethnography, in order to investigate the use of Twitter by IT professionals in forming communities of practice. This study is relevant to Library and Information Science (LIS) research as LIS professionals are part of the IT community of practice. This study used information grounds theory (K. E. Fisher, 2005) to explore Twitter as an online information ground. The research used online observation - conceptualised here as online ethnography or digital ethnography - and interviews to collect data. The online observations helped the researcher to understand the norms and culture of the participants along with patterns of behaviour. Interviews were used to understand the information grounds of the virtual environment through the participants' individual perspectives and their information experiences. A total of eleven participants were interviewed after a total of 734 tweets from these same participants were downloaded and analysed. Both interview and Twitter data were analysed using constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006). The findings highlight a variety of information sharing types, the role of information sharing in professional contexts, and the influences of Twitter on communication and social engagement, including a counterintuitive finding that professionals use Twitter not so much to seek or share information as much as to seek out a network of like-minded people. The significance of this study is in providing a fundamental understanding of the ways in which social media is used for professional reasons. It also proposes a systematic, qualitative data collection and data analysis approach to future research around Twitter and social media in general. This contribution not only helps LIS researchers, but can also help information professionals in the use of social media for professional purposes