Evaluating Virtual Reference from the Users’ Perspective

Abstract

This article discusses the evaluation of virtual reference services from the user perspective. It is one outcome of a long-term research project, The Library Visit Study, which has been conducted in three phases at the University of Western Ontario for more than a decade. These studies have identified the need for, and essential components of, reference interviews and good reference behaviors. The third phase of this research focuses on the factors that make a difference to the users’ satisfaction with their virtual reference experience and whether these are the same or different from the ones we identified as important in face-to-face reference. An examination of user accounts of virtual reference transactions indicates that the reference interview has almost disappeared. Among the reasons identified for staff failure to conduct reference interviews in the virtual environment are: the nature of written vs. spoken interaction; the librarian's perceived need to respond quickly in this environment; and the rudimentary nature of the forms used in e-mail reference. The article includes a list of behaviors that users identified as either helpful or unhelpful and concludes with some implications of the research for good virtual reference service.     

Downloads or Outcomes?: Measuring and Communicating the Contributions of Library Resources to Faculty and Student Success

How can libraries proactively demonstrate, quantitatively and qualitatively, return on investment in an academic environment that is increasingly concerned with tangible results? As speaker for Mississippi State University Libraries' 9th MidSouth eResource Symposium, Dr. Rachel Fleming-May, Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee's School of Information Sciences, articulated the need for libraries to communicate their true value and indispensability to campus communities, particularly through the measurement of electronic resource usage. The concept of “use,” however, is complex and must be fully understood for meaningful incorporation into assessment measures. A brief summary of this session, also authored by Amanda Price, appeared in the “E-Resource Roundup” column of the Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, Volume 23, Issue 1 (2011: March).     

RESEARCH AND REFLECTION

Journalism education is increasingly located within universities where much of the teaching is carried out by journalists and former journalists known as “hackademics”. Yet only a minority of journalists-turned-journalism-educators are engaging in the scholarly research typically expected of academics. Should this grouping be expected to undertake academic research into journalism and, if so, how might they be supported in becoming scholars? Such issues will be explored in this study of journalists-turned-journalism-educators in the higher education sectors of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Their experiences of, and attitudes to, academic research into journalism will be reported and analysed alongside the perspectives of journal editors and in comparison with the experiences of academics in other disciplines. Within the context of a growing literature on journalism education, the concept of reflection-upon-practice will be discussed as one with resonance not only for the graduate journalists now being turned out by universities, but for journalism educators internationally.     

The North Carolina State University Libraries Search Experience: Usability Testing Tabbed Search Interfaces for Academic Libraries

Creating a learnable, effective, and user-friendly library Web site hinges on providing easy access to search. Designing a search interface for academic libraries can be particularly challenging given the complexity and range of searchable library collections, such as bibliographic databases, electronic journals, and article search silos. Library Web designers must decide whether to present users with a single search interface—one that searches across content silos by default—or to offer an interface that exposes the various silos available. Designers must also contend with the user's entire search experience and determine how search should appear on the library home page as well as in global navigation systems. In the spring of 2010, the North Carolina State University Libraries sought to answer search design questions for an upcoming Web site design effort. The Libraries evaluated two different search interfaces to determine whether a tabbed search approach with options to pre-select silos is an effective design for end users. Findings show that a tabbed search interface is an effective design device for presenting multiple silos. This study outlines the methods the North Carolina State University Libraries used to conduct usability testing as well as observations, findings, and recommendations about effective design of search on academic library Web sites.     

Side by Side: What a Comparative Usability Study Told Us About a Web Site Redesign

Library Web sites must compete against easy-to-use sites, such as Google Scholar, Google Books, and Wikipedia, for students’ time and attention. Library Web sites must therefore be designed with aesthetics and user perceptions at the forefront. The Music and Performing Arts Library at Urbana-Champaign's Web site was overcrowded and in much need of a user-focused redesign. This article presents a usability study that compared participants’ use of the old site versus the new site to determine if performance improved on the redesigned site. Participants were asked to complete library-related tasks on both the old Web site and on the redesigned Web site to determine if they could both complete more tasks and complete tasks more quickly on the new site. Participants showed a marked improvement on the new site, and their “think-out-loud” responses to the tasks helped further improve site design and wording. Participants were also surveyed about their perceptions of ease of use and navigation on the old and new sites, and in general, the new site was preferred by participants and seen as a great improvement. Future studies will aim to further involve students and faculty in addressing terminology and site organization.     

Assessment of Digitized Library and Archives Materials: A Literature Review

Professional literature about the assessment of digital libraries reflects a growing interest in both improving the user experience and in justifying the creation of digital collections to multiple stakeholders. This article explores some of the key themes in digital library assessment literature through a review of current literature (2004–14) gathered from both scholarly and popular resources online. The majority of scholarship about digital library assessment utilizes usability testing and Web statistics for data collection, while studies about altmetrics, the reuse of digital library materials, cost benefit analysis, and the holistic evaluation of digital libraries are also present in the literature. Exploring the literature about digital library assessment allows libraries to create effective and sustainable evaluation models based on the successes and shortcomings of previously completed projects.     

Literacy practices in Mexican immigrant homes

Abstract

Despite a well-established body of literature focusing on school-based Spanish and English bilingualism of Latino children in the United States, the biliteracy development and literacy practices at home have received little attention by the educational research community. Addressing this gap is important because educators can then use the knowledge related to home language and literacy resources to inform the school curricula and better serve the needs of a linguistically and culturally diverse student population. We contribute to this endeavor by exploring two Mexican immigrant families and their language and literacy practices in their home milieu. Findings from this study suggest that family interactions, as well as the more general home context, are crucial factors in supporting children's development of both oral language and literacy in Spanish and English. An important and recurrent observation is the scaffolding that parents use in Spanish as part of their literacy practices. In addition, children act as agents in their own learning of Spanish, and in making connections to their knowledge of English     

我国国民网络信息行为变化研究

论文在归纳国内网络信息行为研究进展的基础上,对2001至2010年《中国互联网络发展状况统计报告》数据进行整理、对比、分析,总结国民网络信息行为的变化及特点,预测其发展趋势,并提出图书馆应对变化的策略.     

Audio-visual production and shortcomings of distribution in organisation studies

This article considers the relation of audio-visual media to research in organisation studies, a scholarly market of the cultural economy. Guided theoretically by affect, audio-visual media place emphasis on mental and physical sensations that most organisation studies research, whether objective or subjective, tends to overlook or only imply. Too often, underlying disciplinary assumptions impose controls that are incompatible with the transmission of affect. Now, it is the case that those who have accumulated cultural capital within the field privilege conventions already found in the logic of the printed word. At issue is the implication that the culture of print effectually suppresses experimentation with audio-visual media as an alternative form of presentation. To illustrate the problem, I draw on first-hand experience of efforts to establish the research contribution of a short film.     

An assemblage of framings and tamings: multi-sited analysis of infrastructures as a methodology

ABSTRACT

The social life of methods – the idea that research methods are an important topic of inquiry in and of themselves – has been receiving increasing interest in scholarship on the organisation of the economy and social life, including Science and Technology Studies (STS). In STS, especially ethnographic methods have been important for decades. This article develops an ethnographic methodology for the study of a very new case that challenges the assumptions underpinning many STS ethnographies. This case is the networked energy infrastructure, and we specifically focus on its risk management and markets. Drawing upon recent STS interest in multi-sited ethnography, the article’s research design is termed the multi-sited analysis of infrastructures (MSAI), and it develops the concepts of framing and taming to focus on meaning formation as mundane sense-making and as technicalised reasoning on different sites. We demonstrate these concepts in a multi-sited ethnography of energy infrastructure and its risk management and market activities in public regulation, special control rooms (including energy trading), and households. The article rounds up by explaining how the application of our methodology contributes to the advancement of interests in multi-sited ethnography, relating our research to the previous work in the fields of STS, infrastructure studies, and their methods.