Connecting with Faculty Perceptions and Behaviors

1
Connecting with Faculty Perceptions and Behaviors

• Dr. Karla Hahn
• Collection Management Team Leader
• University of Maryland Libraries

2
The issue

• What are they thinking?

3
Research at the University of Maryland

• Improving our understanding of faculty
  perceptions, behaviors, and needs
• What do we experience at the digital crossroads?
• Why do we care what faculty think and do?
• How do we get into their heads?

4
Research at the University of Maryland

• Developing the survey
• Decide how we want to use the data
• Determine what questions have answers that would
  affect our behavior as collection managers
• Test whether we are asking questions that will
  allow users to tell us what we want to know
• Gather the data

5
Research at the University of Maryland

• The results Faculty use of library journals

6
Research at the University of Maryland

• The results Preferred formats for journals

7
Research at the University of Maryland

• The results Issues created by conversion to
  e-only

8
Interpreting the Maryland research

• How do the findings affect collection management?
• We need to think differently about this issues
• We need to make decisions differently
• We need to deal with two problems, converting too
  fast and converting too slow

9
Research at the University of Maryland

• What did we learn about connecting?
• What do we want to ask? vs What will influence
  our actions?
• The challenge of avoiding monumental thinking
• The importance of creating a context of print and
  electronic
• We need to challenge our thinking of our role

10
Other research

• Getting into their heads

11
Connecting with the Sci Tech Community

• Carol Tenopir and Don King
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• University of Tennessee, Knoxville
• Survey research

12
Sci Tech (Tenopir and King)

• Research Questions
• How much are scientists using electronic journals
  and other electronic sources of article?
• Scientists relative use of print and electronic
  sources of journal articles?

13
Sci Tech (Tenopir and King)

• Table 1 Average article readings and the time
  spent reading by workfield per year per scientist

Extracted from Tenopir and King, 2002, Reading
behaviour and electronic journals. Learned
Publishing. 15(4)259-266.
14
Sci Tech (Tenopir and King)

• Table 2 Average number of readings of articles
  per person by age of article read, ORNL 1984 and
  2000

Tenopir and King, 2002, Reading behaviour and
electronic journals. Learned Publishing.
15(4)259-266.
15
Sci Tech (Tenopir and King)

• Table 3 Sources of articles read, UT 2000-2001

Tenopir and King, 2002, Reading behaviour and
electronic journals. Learned Publishing.
15(4)259-266.
16
Sci Tech (Tenopir and King)

• Finding articles (extracted from text)

Extracted from Tenopir and King, 2002, Reading
behaviour and electronic journals. Learned
Publishing. 15(4)259-266.
17
Connecting with Humanists

• Brockman, Neumann, Palmer, Tidline
• Humanists at the University of Illinois and the
  University of Chicago
• Qualitative interviews of 33 humanists
• In depth case studies of 5 humanists

18
Humanists (Brockman et al.)

• Research questions
• How do humanities scholars think about, organize,
  and perform their research?
• How are information sources used throughout the
  research process?
• How do electronic information sources affect work
  practices?

19
Humanists (Brockman et al.)

• Findings
• Humanists scholars read broadly and often
  interact deeply with texts.
• Emphasize the diversity of information sources
  used from journals to books to primary source
  materials in various forms.
• Books are not preferred to journals as is
  typically asserted, instead they are used in
  different ways.

Summarized from Brockman et al., 2001, Scholarly
work in the humanities and the evolving
information environment. DLF and CLIR.
20
Humanists (Brockman et al.)

• Findings (cont.)
• Wide adoption of information technology.
• Where electronic resources are available,
  scholars are using them with the exception of
  finding aids.
• Extensive and sophisticated use was made of
  online catalogs and indexing and abstracting
  resources.

Summarized from Brockman et al., 2001, Scholarly
work in the humanities and the evolving
information environment. DLF and CLIR.
21
Focus on teaching

• Digital Library Federation contract with Outsell
• Survey of Faculty and Students
• Research Institutions and Liberal Arts Colleges

22
Focus on teaching (Outsell Survey)

• Faculty use of print and electronic resources

Extracted from Friedlander, 2002, Dimensions and
Use of the Scholarly Information Environment.
DLF.
23
Connecting faculty with a new vision for
collection management

• Connecting behavior, attitudes, and perceptions
• Connecting (and disconnecting) print and
  electronic
• Acknowledging the complexity of decision-making

24
Questions and Discussion