Social information behaviour in physical libraries: Implications for the design of digital libraries
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Accepted version, 1.138Mb
Citation
Export citationHinze, A., Alqurashi, H., Vanderschantz, N., Timpany, C., & Alzahrani, S. G. (2014). Social information behaviour in physical libraries: Implications for the design of digital libraries. In IEEE/ACM Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (pp. 107–116). Washington, DC: IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/JCDL.2014.6970156
Permanent Research Commons link: https://hdl.handle.net/10289/13555
Abstract
Physical bookshops and libraries are visited by both individuals, and groups of patrons, while digital libraries are designed primarily for individual users. This paper reports on a study exploring the behaviour of groups of patrons in physical libraries, detailing their collaboration and communication during book searches. We aim to identify how characteristics such as location, time, environment, ambiance, layout and personal motivation play a role in a group's search and browsing behaviour. We report the findings of observations of group collaboration in academic and public libraries, and compare the observed book and library use techniques employed by patron groups. Further, we examine the support for group collaboration in digital libraries and discuss the implications of our observations for the design of digital libraries that support group collaboration and interaction among users. To that end, the paper suggests features and functions that could be added to DLs to enable asynchronous group communication and interaction.
Date
2014Publisher
IEEE
Rights
This is an author’s accepted version of an article published in the proceedings of IEEE/ACM Joint Conference on Digital Libraries. © 2014 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.