When Questions Are Answers: Using a Survey to Achieve Faculty Awareness of the Library’s Electronic Resources

Weingart, Sandra; Anderson, Janet A.

doi:10.5860/crl.61.2.127

Cited by 26 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…More than two-thirds of respondents were aware of some of the electronic resources. Respondents who were aware of, and made use of, each database were asked to rate the importance of that database to their own work (Weingart and Anderson, 2000). Tenner and Yang (1999) analyzed the relationship between the electronic journal use and age, and status of faculty members and found that assistant professors were most likely to have used electronic journals (44.7 per cent), followed by full professors (34.5 per cent), and associate professors (34.2 per cent).…”

Section: Evaluating Digital Libraries: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Weingart and Anderson (2000) have mentioned in the article they have written that only the minority of the other researches in the literature made regarding the use of the electronic resources in universities include a survey study directly related with the academicians. When we look at the studies made in the following years, on the use of the databases in the literature, we can say that this tendency remains unchanged.…”

Section: Evaluating Digital Libraries: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

An evaluation of the second survey on electronic databases usage at Ankara University Digital Library

Atakan

Atılgan

Bayram

et al. 2008

The Electronic Library

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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to encompass the assessment of the effectiveness of the digital library and the value of multidisciplinary databases in terms of user preferences and use frequency by academic ranking. Another result of the survey is that many of the faculty members, although not all, use electronic databases. The most preferred databases have been Web of Science, Science Direct and Ebsco. When use of the electronic databases is analyzed, in respect of faculty rank and level of awareness, associate and assistant professors, assistants are ranked first. Originality/value -The study presents the first case study in the field in Turkey that compares the current situation of the digital library usage with the initial survey data.

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Section: Evaluating Digital Libraries: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Evaluating Digital Libraries: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

An evaluation of the second survey on electronic databases usage at Ankara University Digital Library

Atakan

Atılgan

Bayram

et al. 2008

The Electronic Library

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Curiously, some suggested resources were already offered by the Library. This could be an indication that more effort must be made to publicize the Library's resources to the ILO community, and lends support to the view that the 'questions' posed in a user survey are an important means to achieve awareness of the Library's resources (Weingart & Anderson, 2000).…”

Section: Online Resource Usementioning

confidence: 78%

Surveying user needs in an international context: A qualitative case study from the ILO, Geneva

Bolduc

2008

International Information & Library Review

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User satisfaction and optimization of resources have become important areas for libraries to maintain awareness of. Since the International Labour Office (ILO) Library had previously conducted quantitative studies, a qualitative user needs survey was carried out in order to gather more in-depth information regarding the attitudes of staff towards the services and products offered. This study looked primarily at a selection of key issues considered to be of particular importance. The semi-structured face-to-face interview was the selected instrument and open-ended questions were employed to best allow users to express their opinions (the main goal of the study). One goal was to get a balanced crosssection of the ILO community from the various departments at the Geneva (Switzerland) headquarters. Another goal was to create a French version of the interview schedule in order to offer participants a choice of which language they were most comfortable using. In total, 50 ILO officials were interviewed in both English and French. The written notes taken during each interview were content analyzed, revealing several trends and issues as a result. By using information gained through this user survey to better meet the needs of its community, the ILO Library demonstrates just how valuable a tool such a study can be for any organization focused on continually improving its role for all users.

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“…In assessing the relative importance researchers place on different databases, past research identified the following databases important to (or used frequently by) researchers: Current Contents, Dissertation Abstracts, EBSCOhost, ERIC, INSPEC, Medline, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science (Bar-Ilan, Peritz & Wolman, 2003;Clark & Gomez, 1990;Talja & Maula, 2003;Weingart & Anderson, 2000).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One common drawback in some of these previous studies (Bar-Ilan, Peritz, & Wolman, 2003;Weingart & Anderson, 2000) is that they did not analyze their data by discipline. For example, Weingart & Anderson (2000) found that 34.6% and 65.6% of all respondents were unaware of ERIC and Compendex Engineering Index respectively.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of information search expertise: research students' knowledge of databases

Chu

Law

2005

Online Information Review

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Purpose-This paper reports on a study of twelve postgraduate research students' development of information search expertise. It focuses on students' perceived importance and growth of knowledge of different databases as they progress through their studies. Design/methodology/approach-Taking an in-depth longitudinal approach, this study makes use of surveys, direct observations of students' searching of various databases, students' verbalization of their thoughts while searching databases and interviews during a one-year period. The paper focuses on analyzing the data from surveying and interviewing the students with regard to their use of databases. Findings-It was found that many students were initially unfamiliar with many of the databases important to them and that the familiarity developed during the year contributed importantly to their development of information search expertise. Originality/value-The findings suggest that much work has to be done to inform and instruct students about these "treasures". This paper further identifies features that may increase the usefulness of a journal database and makes suggestions on ways to improve library support for the effective use of databases.

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When Questions Are Answers: Using a Survey to Achieve Faculty Awareness of the Library’s Electronic Resources

Cited by 26 publications

References 2 publications

An evaluation of the second survey on electronic databases usage at Ankara University Digital Library

An evaluation of the second survey on electronic databases usage at Ankara University Digital Library

Surveying user needs in an international context: A qualitative case study from the ILO, Geneva

Development of information search expertise: research students' knowledge of databases

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