Perceptions of Usability and Usefulness in Digital Libraries

This paper provides an overview of a case study research that investigated the use of Digital Library (DL) resources in two undergraduate classes and explored faculty and students’ perceptions of educational digital libraries. This study found that students and faculty use academic DLs primarily for textual resources, but turn to the open Web for visual and multimedia resources. The study participants did not perceive academic libraries as a useful source of digital images and used search engines when searching for visual resources. The limited use of digital library resources for teaching and learning is associated with perceptions of usefulness and ease of use, especially if considered in a broader information landscape, in conjunction with other library information systems, and in the context of Web resources. The limited use of digital libraries is related to the following perceptions: 1) Library systems are not viewed as user-friendly, which in turn discourages potential users from trying DLs provided by academic libraries; 2) Academic libraries are perceived as places of primarily textual resources; perceptions of usefulness, especially in regard to relevance of content, coverage, and currency, seem to have a negative effect on user intention to use DLs, especially when searching for visual materials.

The Effect of Discovery Systems on Online Journal Usage: A Longitudinal Study

Many academic libraries are implementing discovery services as a way of giving their users a single comprehensive search option for all library resources. These tools are designed to change the research experience, yet very few studies have investigated the impact of discovery service implementation. This study examines one aspect of that impact by asking whether usage of publisher-hosted journal content changes after implementation of a discovery tool. Libraries that have begun using the four major discovery services have seen an increase in usage of this content, suggesting that for this particular type of material, discovery services have a positive impact on use. Though all discovery services significantly increased usage relative to a no discovery service control group, some had a greater impact than others, and there was extensive variation in usage change among libraries using the same service. Future phases of this study will look at other types of content.

Digitization for Preservation and Access: Restoring the Usefulness of the Nitrate Negative Collections at the American Geographical Society Library

Film-based photographic collections of nitrate negatives pose major challenges to preservation and access because of unstable media and the lack of item-level indexing. Digitization offers an opportunity to capture the content of deteriorating negatives, to extend access to them, and to restore their usefulness as information resources. Digitization as a preservation strategy has been the subject of ongoing debate. This article contributes to the discussion by exploring access to and the preservation of film-based photographic collections and by presenting the digiti- zation project at the American Geographical Society Library as a case study. The project, Saving and Sharing the AGS Library’s Historic Nitrate Negative Images, was undertaken from 2010 to 2012 to preserve and provide access to over 69,000 nitrate negatives from its historic collections.

How Does the Denver Public Library System Respond to its Customer's Requests for Global Information?

The interaction between globally available information and public library users is a changing one. Global information is readily available yet provider and user struggle to find efficiencies of time and resources. As a primary resource of global information the Denver Public Library (DPL) is approaching this challenge by providing changing technology to a changing user and by providing a customized approach to immigrant populations. DPL provides global information to library users through collections, programs and Internet. Internet and collections global information usage cannot be directly measured due to privacy restrictions. Only 12.5% of general user programs focus on global information. Four percent of budget serves the immigrant users. This is greater than national averages.