User behaviour: searching for scholarly material using electronic resource discovery systems

Abstract

This paper reports on user behaviour when interacting with various electronic resource discovery systems (ERDS) while searching for scholarly material. It focuses on the search strategies applied by 34 students and researchers in Business and Economics from three UK universities to find relevant information on a specified topic. The findings of the study are presented in relation to existing information-seeking models. Although there are a lot of similarities between existing models we have found some differences between those and our study. These are: the use of personal/ social networks to develop keywords for the queries as well as obtaining relevant material, study participants very rarely applied only one search strategy but tended to carry out combined searches which vary depending on the user group, and participants used different means of storing material. We expect these findings to help shape a set of requirements for next generation information discovery provisions in academic libraries.

Contributors

Hanna Stelmaszewska

B.L. William Wong

Nazlin Bhimani

Balbir Barn

Conference

Publication date: September 2010

Publication date (Print): September 2010

Pages: 17-26

Affiliations

Interaction Design Centre, Middlesex University Learning

The Burroughs, Hendon London NW4 4BT

Resources, Middlesex University

The Burroughs, Hendon London NW4 4BT

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2010.5

Copyright statement: © Hanna Stelmaszewska et al. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. Proceedings of HCI 2010, University of Abertay, Dundee, UK

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of HCI 2010

Conference acronym: HCI

Conference number: 24

Conference location: University of Abertay, Dundee, UK

Conference date: 6 - 10 September 2010

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Human Computer Interaction

Product

Product Information: 1477-9358BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2010.5

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

Categories

Series title: Electronic Workshops in Computing