An early study of user frustration in a library Tefko Saracevic An early study of user frustration in a library Any relevance for present day brick & mortar and digital libraries? Tefko Saracevic, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor Emeritus School of Communication and Information Rutgers University tefkos@rutgers.edu

Reminiscences A long while ago Paul & I worked on a research project Some interesting results came out Here is a recount And some implications And best wishes

History: Information utilities - Project INFUT NSF Grant to Complex Systems Institute, Case Western Reserve Univ., Sept 1972 – March 1975 Objectives (among others): methodologies for evaluation of the utilization of information in a University experiments – involving real users requesting know items (books) from a university library Results: 12 publications in various Proceedings & 9 journal articles model & data: availability of library resources for users

Major publications

Data collection Studied users in a science & technology library who came with a request for a book (know item) And then analyzed how many of these requests were actually satisfied And for those that were NOT satisfied, why not? On two occasions: 1972: library had a semester long loan policy 1974: library changed to a four week loan policy

Model: Branching diagram from no. of total (W) to no. of satisfied (S) requests & what happened in between

User requests for a specific book (1972: book loan for a semester) W = 423 (total requests) V = 371 (acquired by libr. ) U = 286 (total available) T = 255 (libr. operation) S = 203 (satisfied requests) Da = 52 (libr. did not have) Dc = 85 (in circulation) Dl = 31 (library error - missing, mis-shelved...) Du = 52 (user error) Pa = 88% (V/W) i.e.12% NOT actually acquired Pc = 77% (U/V) 23 % circulating Ps = 48% (S/W) (of requested satisfied) Pl = 89% (T/U) 11% library error Pu = 80% (S/T) 20% user error

User requests for a specific book (1974 change: book loan for four weeks) W = 437 (total requests) V = 399 (acquired by libr. ) U = 342 (total available) T = 299 (libr. operation) S = 245 (satisfied requests) Da = 38 (libr. did not have) Dc = 52 (in circulation) Dl = 48 (library error - missing, mis-shelved...) Du = 54 (user error) Pa = 91% i.e. 9% NOT acquired Pc = 87% 13 % circulating Ps = 56% (S/W) (of requested satisfied) Pl = 86% 14% library error Pu = 82% 18% user error

Performance 1972 semester loan 1974 four weeks loan Satisfaction 48% 56% Acquisition 88% 91% Circulation 77% lowest 87% Library operations 89% 86% User performance 80% second lowest 82%

An application 30 years later Branching diagram applied but measures of performance called “barriers” - elaborated data analyzed pretty much the same way

Can it be applied today? To B&M libraries? Yes, definitely Same reasons for not finding known items pertain today But should be modified to include all kinds of information resources Users still look for books & other resources in libraries basically the same way. But they also do now many different things

Can it be applied today? To digital libraries? Yes, but with modification to account for new(er) information resources & capabilities Branching still exist we know that many additional variables now affect performance & present “barriers” to users but we do not have, yet, good models & methodologies to study them & get useful data However, today users use great many information sources in addition to libraries But performance?????

Conclusion Wide and constantly increasing diversity of digital libraries & related collection & portals suggests several issues traditional libraries are not traditional any more but come in many digital library forms; many/most are hybrid many new players have entered the arena particularly in subject areas but all need to account for performance A new branching model is needed old branching model may point the way for developing one

Over the years ... Conference Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) Dubrovnik & island Mljet Croatia