Browsing and searching e-encyclopaedias

Educational websites and electronic encyclopaedias employ many of the same design elements, such as hyperlinks, frames and search mechanisms. This paper asks to what extent recommendations from the world of web design can be applied to e-encyclopaedias, through an evaluation of users' browsing and searching behaviour in the free, web-based versions of Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Concise Columbia Encyclopaedia and Microsoft's Encarta. It is discovered that e-encyclopaedias have a unique set of design requirements, as users' expectations are inherited from the worlds of both web and print

Sometimes the Internet reads the question wrong: children’s search strategies & difficulties

When children search for information on a given topic, how do they go about searching for and retrieving information? What can their information seeking strategies tell us about the development of search interfaces for children's digital libraries, search engines and information repositories? We interviewed New Zealand (NZ) school children to seek insights into how they are conducting information searches during their education

Film: A guide to finding information

A guide to Library resources for Film

Using a task-based approach in evaluating the usability of BoBIs in an e-book environment

This paper reports on a usability evaluation of BoBIs (Back-of-the-book Indexes) as searching and browsing tools in an e-book environment. This study employed a task-based approach and within-subject design. The retrieval performance of a BoBI was compared with a ToC and Full-Text Search tool in terms of their respective effectiveness and efficiency for finding information in e-books. The results demonstrated that a BoBI was significantly more efficient (faster) and useful compared to a ToC or Full-Text Search tool for finding information in an e-book environment

Legal research in a changing information environment

Since the advent of the latest constitutional dispensation in South Africa, legalresearchers have been presented with new opportunities for research intoconstitutional issues, development and the relationship between constitutionallaw and other fields. This article investigates how information technologyapplications can support the legal research process and what the benefits oftechnology are likely to be to legal research. Furthermore, it investigates thechanges and the impact that electronic resources and the digital informationenvironment might have on legal research. This entails a study of the uniquecharacteristics of digital legal research and of the challenges that legalresearchers face in a changing information environment

E-books in academic libraries

This paper provides an analysis of the current state of the art in e-books, and attempts both to set the scene and provide reasons for their low uptake. Publishers, e-book providers and aggregators, academics and intermediaries (i.e., librarians and information specialists) should concentrate on raising awareness of what is available and what are the advantages related to e-books for specific categories of users. At the same time e-book suppliers should make e-books easier to find and purchase

Analysing Information Seeking Behavior of College Students in Changing Environment

This research paper investigated the information seeking behavior of college students surveying twelve colleges affiliated to the University of Delhi. Different variable sets were used to analyse the undergraduates’ reading habits, information needs, information search and information use behavior. Total 506 undergraduate students of different disciplines such as sciences, social sciences and humanities were selected as a sample applying multistage and stratified sampling techniques. The study applied SPSS, Version-25 for analysing the various aspects of the study. Results revealed that books were the most preferred source of information among 84.2 percent of the undergraduate students followed by newspapers (64.9 percent) and magazines (43.7 percent) in all the three disciplines. In addition, 34.3 percent undergraduate students were inclined for reading books in more often printed less often electronic format, newspapers (37.3 percent) respondents in both printed and electronic in equal proportion and magazine (52.4 percent) in more often electronic and less often printed format. On the basis of weighted mean, keyword search (206.3 WM) followed by phrase search (159.1 WM) were always used by the students for information search and retrieval. The maximum number of 24.7 percent respondents in humanities, sciences (23.5 percent) and social sciences (23.3 percent) found print resources more reliable than electronic resources

Information seeking behaviour of mathematicians : scientists and students

Introduction. The paper presents original research designed to explore and compare selected aspects of the information seeking behaviour of mathematicians (scientists and students) on the Internet. Method. The data were gathered through a questionnaire distributed at the end of 2011 and in January 2012. Twenty-nine professional mathematicians and 153 students of mathematics from the Institute of Mathematics of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, were surveyed. Analysis. The gathered data were analysed in a quantitative manner and then interpreted comparatively to find similarities and differences between the behaviour of professional mathematicians and students. Results. Students, as opposed to scientists, often declared searching for reference works and multimedia objects and comparatively rarely for journal papers and information about sources unavailable on the Web. They more willingly use social networking sites while scientists more often search discipline-oriented portals or library Websites. Scientists use, first of all, the author's name or the publication titles to formulate queries, students prefer keyword searching. While scientists trust their own ability to determine the scientific character of information or treat journals as determinants of the scientific quality, students do not. Conclusions. The research revealed some significant differences between the information seeking behaviour of those two groups of mathematicians. It could be the result of different levels of experience in scientific work, distinct tasks undertaken within the academic environment, and the change in the general paradigm of information searching

An investigation into the use of CD-Rom technology by pupils in mainstream primary schools

The 1994 CD-ROM in Primary schools government initiative increased by over two thousand, the number of primary schools who were using CD-ROM technology with their pupils. The investigation focuses of the way that this technology was being introduced, and later used, in four schools in two English shire counties. The findings are compared and contrasted with the results from a postal survey of primary schools, with postal addresses in the same two counties, who received a complete CD-ROM system under that 1994 government initiative as well as the findings of other researchers of the same initiative. The investigation focuses on the organisation and management of the CD-ROM system within the school. The advantages and disadvantages of siting decisions are examined along with the resulting effects upon pupils' use of the system. As the government initiative provided schools with both a system and a package of CD-ROM software, the investigation looks at the titles that proved most (and least) popular with schools. Since very few CD-ROMs were developed for education, teachers' criteria for choosing commercial CD-ROMs to use within the National Curriculum are examined as are the purchasing policies and the decision making processes of the four schools. Having observed the way in which the technology was introduced to pupils in the four schools, the investigation was continued to observe the pattern of use that developed and the way in which that use changed through the primary age range. Although the use by young pupils continued to include multimedia reading books, once pupils had learnt simple ordering skills, they were introduced to the use of CD-ROMs for information collection; eventually using CD-ROMs almost exclusively to supplement, rather than supplant, traditional information sources. Teachers recognised that CDROMs contained vast sources of information but that pupils required search skills in order to access that information. The ways in which teachers attempted to teach these skills using the CD-ROMs that were available to them were investigated. Although standard referencing methods enabled pupils to find information in books using, the task was different, and often more difficult with CD-ROMs, due to the nonstandard organisations of the titles that were designed for the home market and leisured browsing. The investigation looked at the ways in which pupils in the four schools were guided to find information and the ways in which that information was recorded and used within the curriculum. This was compared with the use of traditional source. When CD-ROM technology was introduced into education, it had been expected to make changes both to the delivery of the curriculum and the ways in which pupils both collected and recorded information. The investigation looked for these anticipated changes within the four schools. As two of the schools had units for hearing impaired pupils, the investigation included observation of the ways in which the technology was used by those pupils both within the units and the mainstream classes seeking to discover possible advantages and disadvantages that the use of the technology made for pupils who could not access all of the available media. However, unlike secondary pupils, it would appear from this research that the use of CD-ROM technology brought an additional option of information source for primary pupils, but made little change to the structure of the curriculum.