Peiling Wang Use of Digital Information Resources & Internet Tools by Academic Researchers in the U.S., Greece & China Dimitris A. Dervos Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) 2007 May 28- June 2, Dubrovnik & Mljet, Croatia

Why this study? Why this study? Scholarly communication and information seeking have always been topics of interest in the field Information environment has changed rapidly as a result of the Internet Researchers’ information seeking (IS) behaviors

Two-dimensional Framework Guiding Research Design Dimension A: IS activities A.1. General, pertaining to long-term research needs A.2. Task-based, corresponding to project lifecycle Dimension B: Internet Information & Communication Technology/Resources (IICT) B.1. Internet communication tools B.2. Internet-enabled information resources

IS activities A.1. General IS Behaviors Pertaining to Long-term Research Needs Monitoring Monitoring Browsing Browsing Managing Managing Archiving Archiving A.2. Task-based IS Behaviors Corresponding to Project Lifecycle Starting Starting Searching Searching Accessing Accessing Chaining Chaining Ending Ending

Internet Information & Communication Tools B.1. Internet Communication Tools Web Web FTP FTP Listserv Listserv Blog Blog Wiki Wiki Instant messaging Instant messaging B.2. Internet-enabled Information Resources Database Database Digital library Digital library E-Journal E-Journal Online library catalog Online library catalog

Relating Research Questions to Framework How do researchers engage in two types of IS activities in today’s digital environment? What IICTs do researchers use/not use for IS? General IS activitiesTask-based IS activities Internet Communication Tools Internet Information Resources Are there any differences in IS activities and the use of IICTs in the US, China, and Greece?

Research Design Semi-structured interviews Part I: checklist of 9 IICTs Part II: paired questions (length & frequency) Part III: sorting from most to least important Part IV: How do researchers engage in IS activities? Which IICTs do they use to support specific IS activities?

Disciplines Considered Productive and active researchers (faculty and doctoral students) from following fields: Computer Science Engineering Information Science Journalism Humanities

Data Collection in Progress Summer 2005: Started in the US at a research intensive state university December 2005: Extended to China in three national universities September 2006: Extended to Greece in three higher level institutions

Participants in CS and Engineering as Reported in This Paper R&D Expenditure (% GDP) in 2004 US is 4.6 times of Greece US is 1.9 times of China Researchers (per million people) 2004 US is 3.4 times of Greece US is 6.8 times of China Internet users (per thousand people) US is 3.6 times of Greece in 2004 US is 2.3 times of Greece in 2006 US is 8.6 times of China in 2004 US is 5.3 times of China in 2006  28  19  35 ∑ = 82

IICT Usage: Communication Tools , Web, FTP, and Listserv are the four IICTs used by more than 50% participants in at least one country (Listserv is used only by 14% participants in China) Blogs, Wiki, Instant messaging: not in our original lists, mentioned by some participants. Most CS and Eng researchers do not use

IICT Usage: Information Resources All participants in the US and Greece use at least one of the four resources The most used is digital library and the least used is e-journal terminological confusion about e-journal overlapping in access to different resources converging and integrating resource access

Perceived IICT Importance RankAll (N=82)US (N=28)Greece (N=19)China (N=35) 1stWeb Web 2nd WebDigital libraryE-journal 3rdDigital library E-journalWeb 4thE-journal Digital library 5thDatabaseOPACDatabase 6thOPACDatabaseOPAC Note: Based on median; the medians; means are used as tiebreaker.

Information Needs Satisfied by Digital Resources  85% in Greece  81% in the US  74% in China Note: Participants from CS and Engineering

Reasons for Not Using IICTs My opinion from the blogs I've seen so far, they're a lot of discussion, a lot of information, and you need a lot of time to process this discussion, and I don't have this time.... In my project, I used a lot of drawings and blue prints that will never be in electronic format.. Even though we say "that's referred"[e-journals]... I think it takes time for those old people to recognize the value of them... large files like several gigabytes data that ftp couldn't support Personal situation & perceptions  time constraints  information overload  availability  convenience  unknown  nature of projects Field or social context  trust  peer-reviewed  tenure tradition  disciplinary norm  network externality Resource characteristics  form or mode  organization & structure  focus  usefulness

IS Behavior Conferences continue to be an important informal channel of communication and information exchange In CS and Eng some conferences are rated higher than journals in determining the value and impact of a research publication

Challenges to libraries and librarians... thanks to the Internet, I don't have to rely on the library Basically, the only reason I would go to the library is to get coffee. I think that the role of the library will have to change.

General IS Activities monitoring is much easier today with the Web and various alerts via ; online availability of conference programs/proceedings is also a boon managing information is a big challenge archiving with institutional repositories or disciplinary repositories is reported only by three Greek researchers China has a university-based registry system to keep track of research output

Managing Digital Information A wide range of methods are adopted print out (do not save e-files) piles, binders, file cabinet keep e-files for only a period (6 months to 2 years) personal bibliographic software multiple copies to folders and subfolders multiple copies in multiple computers group server rely on the Internet (“ good stuff will be there. ”)

Task-based IS Activities starting is not a critical stage for senior researchers; most use the Web as the first source searching is often extended by visiting experts’ homepages for publications accessing appears to be done in the following order: digital library, inter-library loan, author’s homepage, to the author chaining is made easier now with resources providing both forward and backward links (CiteSeer is the most mentioned) ending

Implications Active researchers should maintain an up-to-date research homepage Librarians and libraries must find new roles the physical library as we know it is being challenged to transform to something new institutional repository a shift from service and user instruction to user studies and design & redesign of information resources

Implications (cont’d) New digital tools and resources must meet needs and incorporate new behaviors incorporate what users know and how they use information embed learning in use to facilitate correct conceptual understanding revamp current personal bibliographic database tools with new models that incorporate information needs and seeking behaviors