Material mastery: situating digital library use in university research practices

In the past several years, researchers in library and information science, computer science and management information systems have claimed that knowledge workers will transform important characteristics of work due to increased access to digital libraries over the Internet. To explore the influence of digital libraries on knowledge work, this study investigated the use of paper and electronic materials by academic researchers in four disciplines at eight US research universities. This study found that at a given point in time, the match between `material mastery' and features of using a particular digital library could explain its use. This paper discusses findings about digital library use, work characteristics and how material mastery explains patterns of digital library use.