“It’s so easy—Internet, Google.” Positioning the Library Into the

Life of the User

Lynn Silipigni Connaway, PhDSenior Research Scientist, OCLC

Rome, 15 March 2016

THE LIBRARY IN THE LIFE OF THE USER

Our traditional model was one in which we thought of the user in the life of the library… but we are now increasingly thinking about the library in the life of the user

(Connaway 2015)(Dempsey 2015)

The workflow contextConvenience and context switching

Fragmentation is a deterrent

Need to provide services for what people actually do, not what they say they do

(Dempsey 2015)

Prabha, Chandra, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Lawrence Olszewski, and Lillie Jenkins. 2007. “What is enough? Satisficing information needs.” Journal of Documentation 63, no. 1: 74–89. http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/newsletters/prabha-satisficing.pdf.

Promote resources available to users

“Sometimes libraries are closed and i need help so this [VRS] would be a great alternative. This method should me advertised more.” (Seeking Synchronicity, NOS-36503, Female, Age 15-18)

Prabha, Chandra, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Lawrence Olszewski, and Lillie Jenkins. 2007. “What is enough? Satisficing information needs.” Journal of Documentation 63, no. 1: 74–89. http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/newsletters/prabha-satisficing.pdf.

Satisficing…What is enough information?“…I needed the answer, my maths, I was doing an exercise, I got stuck on a question, I still had the rest of the exercise to go and I had like an hour to do it and I just wanted the formula and the quickest way to do it was to type it into Google and it came up.”

(Digital Visitors and Residents, UKS2, Female, Age 17, Secondary School Student)

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, and Timothy J. Dickey. 2010. The digital information seeker: Report of findings from selected OCLC, RIN, and JISC User Behavior Projects. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/reports/2010/digitalinformationseekerreport.pdf.

Centrality of Google and search engines

“…I just think it’s [VLE web site] too complicated and it’s limited, that I just carried on going on Google.” (Digital Visitors and Residents, UKS6, Female, Age 16, Secondary School Student)

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, Timothy J. Dickey, and Marie L. Radford. 2011. “‘If It Is too inconvenient I’m not going after it:’ Convenience as a critical factor in information-seeking behaviors.” Library & Information Science Research 33, no. 3: 179–190.

“People lack patience to wade through content silos…”

(Connaway 2015, 134)

“Yes, it - sort of makes information gathering effortless and without having to sort of manually go through and separate the chaff from the wheat.”

(Digital Visitors and Residents, UKU10, Male, Age 20, Law)

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, Donna Lanclos, David White, Alison Le Cornu, and Erin M. Hood. 2012. “User-centered decision making: A new model for developing academic library services and systems.” IFLA World Library and Information Congress 2012 Helsinki Proceedings: Libraries Now! Inspiring, Surprising, Empowering. http://conference.ifla.org/sites/default/files/files/papers/wlic2012/76-connaway-en.pdf.

Motivation and behaviors change based on context and situation

“This morning I was looking for a homemade bread recipe that I could use to bake and then blog about. At first I started looking online, and it was a little bit overwhelming. I ended up reaching into my mom’s cupboard and using a recipe that I found in one of her old cookbooks. The recipe was just what I was looking for: it was a simple homemade white bread.”

(Digital Visitors and Residents, USS3, Female, Age 17, High School Student)

(

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, David White, Donna Lanclos, and Alison Le Cornu. 2013. “Visitors and Residents: What motivates engagement with the digital information environment?” Information Research 18, no. 1, http://informationr.net/ir/18-1/infres181.html.

Multi-tasking“So, I’ll be like looking over at that and then like either Facebook or my email will beep at me and I’ll click on that, see who sent me something and then go back to working. So, it’s always, kind of, open and there.” (Digital Visitors and Residents, USU4, Male, Age 19, Engineering)

The workflow contextConvenience and context switching

Fragmentation is a deterrent

The personal contextRelationship – sharing – engagement

Need to provide services for what people actually do, not what they say they do

(Dempsey 2015)

“If my other friends recommended it to me and used chat reference services themselves I might be convinced to try them...”

(Seeking Synchronicity, NOS-94938, Female, Age 15-18)

Build relationships

Radford, Marie L., and Lynn Silipigni Connaway. 2007. “‘Screenagers’ and live chat reference: Living up to the promise.” Scan 26, no. 1: 31–39. http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/newsletters/connaway-scan.pdf.

Screenagers have a traditional view of librarians

“It’s like, it’s like, you don’t want to go “So which shelf are you pointing at?” Because, I mean, once they do their famous point, it’s just like…” (Seeking Synchronicity, Focus Group 6 participant, Female, High School Student)

Librarians and services within the workflow

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, Donna M. Lanclos, and Erin M. Hood. 2013. “‘I always stick with the first thing that comes up on Google…’ Where people go for information, what they use, and why.” EDUCAUSE Review Online (6 December), http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/ialways-stick-first-thing-comes-google-where-people-go-information-what-they-use-and-why.

“I haven’t called them, I don’t think I’ve ever talked to the librarians here since I’m not in the building much.”

(Digital Visitors and Residents, USU4, Emerging, Male, Age 19, Engineering)

The workflow contextConvenience and context switching

Fragmentation is a deterrent

The personal contextRelationship – sharing – engagement

The environmental contextSpaces and places

Need to provide services for what people actually do, not what they say they do

(Dempsey 2015)

DATA COLLECTION METHODS

Digital Visitors and Residents: What Motivates Engagement with the Digital Information Environment?

Partners• JISC (UK funding body)

• OCLC• Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ph.D.• Erin M. Hood, M.L.I.S.

• Oxford University• David White • Alison Le Cornu, Ph.D.

• University of North Carolina, Charlotte• Donna Lanclos, Ph.D.

About Digital Visitors and Residents• Identify

individuals’ modes of engagement

• How they acquire their information

• Why they make their choices

(White, Connaway, Lanclos, Hood, and Vass 2014)

V&R Framework

(White and Le Cornu 2011)

#vandrVisitors and Residents resources http://goo.gl/vxUMRD

Educational Stages

(Connaway, White, and Lanclos 2011)

Data Collection Tools

• 4 Project Phases– Semi-structured interviews– Diaries/monthly semi-structured

interviews• Written• Video• Skype or telephone

• Second group of semi-structured interviews

• Online survey(White and Connaway 2011-2014)

Project Phases• Phase 1: Interviews

– 31 (16 US/15 UK) Emerging (Last year of secondary/high school & first year of university)

– 10 (5 US, 5 UK) Establishing (2nd-3rd year undergraduates)

– 10 (5 US, 5 UK) Embedding (Postgraduates, PhD students)

– 10 (5 US, 5 UK) Experiencing (scholars)

Some Phase 1 participants agreed to submit monthly diaries

(White and Connaway 2011-2014)

Project Phases• Phase 3– Interviews of second

group of 12 Emerging stage students (6 US/6 UK)

• Phase 4– In-depth online

survey• 150 participants

representing each educational stage (90 US/60 UK)

(White and Connaway 2011-2014)

1. Describe the things you enjoy doing with technology and the web each week.

2. Think of the ways you have used technology and the web for your studies. Describe a typical week.

3. Think about the next stage of your education. Tell me what you think this will be like.

Example: Digital Visitors & Residents Open & Reflective Questions

(White and Connaway 2011-2012)

“If you had a magic wand, what would your ideal way of getting information be? How would you go about using the systems and services? When? Where? How?”

Open & Reflective Interview Question

(Dervin, Connaway, and Prabha 2003-2005)(Radford and Connaway 2005-2007

(Radford, Connaway, and Shah 2011-2013)(White and Connaway 2011)

(Connaway and White for OCLC Research 2012)

• Face-to-face group interview• Less-structured • Need a trained moderator• Explore in depth feelings & beliefs

Focus Group Interviews

(Connaway and Powell 2010)

Tell us about your experiences with

WorldCat.org.

Broad introductory question to reveal the extent to which users

have engaged with WorldCat.org, and the information-seeking

contexts within which they use the system.

Example: WorldCat.org Focus Group Interview Questions

(Connaway and Wakeling 2012, 7)

• Survey• Log analysis

Quantitative Research

(Davis, Gallardo, and Lachlan 2013)

Think about one experience in which you felt you achieved (or did not achieve) a positive result after seeking library reference services in any format.

– a. Think about one experience in which you felt you did (or did not) achieve a positive result after seeking library reference services in any format.

– b. Describe each interaction.– c. Identify the factors that made these

interactions positive or negative.

Example: Seeking Synchronicity CIT: VRS Potential User Online Survey Questions

(Connaway and Radford 2011)

• What is being accessed?

• Number of accesses?

• Patterns of access

What Can Be Learned from Log Analysis

Referrer TypeSessions (n=15,799,727) % of total sessions

Search Engine 7,439,433 47.1%

Library 2,277,215 14.4%

Other 2,149,130 13.6%

Not specified 1,078,661 6.8%

WC Other 946,696 6.0%

WC Home 829,546 5.3%

Citation Service 578,133 3.7%

GoodReads.com 250,293 1.6%

Wikipedia 155,427 1.0%

OCLC Services 95,193 0.6%

Example: Worldcat.org Log Analysis

(Wakeling et al. Forthcoming)

Guide

http://bit.ly/1MSVmxg

#vandr

FINDINGS: TOOLS

At least 80% of UC3M, UOC, & UK Faculty mentioned Tablets, only 40% of US Faculty mentioned them.

Smart Phones were mentioned by 79%- 100% of all Faculty.

FINDINGS: SOURCES

“I used to seek information in Wikipedia, even my colleagues said that there are wrong things on it…but I said Enciclopedia Larousse [Traditional encyclopedia] also have mistakes…the only difference is that it is printed and is impossible to correct the mistakes once you have the printed version…Mistakes are not about technology, are about people.”

(Digital Visitors and Residents, UOCFE6, Male, Age 53, Computer Science)

Librarians rarely were mentioned by Students of any groups. Faculty of all groups, mentioned librarians more often, yet still less than half of the time.

FINDINGS: DECISION/CHOICE

Convenience/Ease of Use/Accessibility as reasons for selecting a source were mentioned often by all groups.

FINDINGS: PLACE

Social Media was mentioned at least 80% of the time by participants between 12-54 years old.

Social Media was mentioned highly across all Faculty groups, with Facebook being mentioned the most.

FacebookUC3M: 80%US: 80%UK: 100%UOC: 89%

TwitterUC3M: 70%US: 40%UK: 100%UOC: 89%

“You spend many hours, with Saint Google. We entrust ourselves to Saint Google, and that solves it for us.”

(Digital Visitors and Residents, UOCFI6, Male, Age 53, Arts & Humanities)

FINDINGS: MOTIVATION

78% of UOC Faculty mentioned Media Posting as a means of professional dissemination, while only 40% of UC3M, 20% of US, & none of the UK Faculty mentioned it.

33% of UOC Faculty avoided posting to Social Media. None of the other Faculty groups spoke of this disinclination to post to Social Media.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

“Nearly 60 percent of the world’s people are still offline.”(Pattillo 2016)

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, Marie L. Radford, Timothy J. Dickey, Jocelyn De Angelis Williams, and Patrick Confer. 2008. “Sense-making and synchronicity: Information-seeking behaviors of Millennials and Baby Boomers.” Libri 58, no. 2: 123–135. http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/library/2008/connaway-libri.pdf.

Space for socializing and work groups

“We do go to the library or somewhere quiet where we can just get our work done together...”

(Digital Visitors and Residents, UKU3, Emerging, Female, Age 19, French and Italian)

“Whatever their performance level, students report that they prefer to study in the library… libraries offer places where they can focus, and focus makes their study time more effective.”

(Thaler and Pittman 2015, 10)

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, and Ixchel M. Faniel. 2015. “Reordering Ranganathan: Shifting user behaviours, shifting priorities.” SRELS Journal of Information Management 52, no. 1: 3–23. http://i-scholar.in/index.php/sjim/article/view/60392/51360.

It’s time for a change

“Librarians have an opportunity to become part of users’ social networks and to put resources in the context of users’ information needs.”

(Connaway 2015, 23)

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni. 2013. “Meeting the expectations of the community: The engagement-centered library.” Library 2020: Today’s Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow’s Library, edited by J. Janes, 83–88. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.

Embedded librarianship…be where our users need us

“Our experience with a proactive chat model… showed us that there is indeed a ready-made market for our services right on our own library pages...”

(Zhang and Mayer 2014, 205)

“Library is a growing organism.” (Ranganathan 1931)

Use what you knowLearn what you don’t knowEngage in new ways

#vandr

DISCUSSION & QUESTIONS

GrazieLynn Silipigni Connaway, PhDSenior Research Scientist, OCLCconnawal@oclc.org

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, comp. 2015. The Library in the Life of the User: Engaging with People Where They Live and Learn. Dublin, OH: OCLC Research. http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/2015/oclcresearch-library-in-life-of-user.pdf.

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, Donna Lanclos, and Erin M. Hood. “‘I find Google a lot easier than going to the library website.’ Imagine Ways to Innovate and Inspire Students to Use the Academic Library.” Proceedings of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) 2013 conference, April 10-13, 2013, Indianapolis, IN, 2013, http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/conferences/confsandpreconfs/2013/papers/Connaway_Google.pdf.

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, Donna Lanclos, David White, Alison Le Cornu, and Erin M. Hood. 2012. “User-centered Decision Making: A New Model for Developing Academic Library Services and systems.” IFLA 2012 Conference Proceedings, August 11-17, Helsinki, Finland.

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, and Ronald R. Powell. 2010. Basic Research Methods for Librarians. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, and Marie L. Radford. 2005-2007. Seeking Synchronicity: Evaluating Virtual Reference Services from User, Non-User, and Librarian Perspectives. Funded by Institute for Museums and Library Services Research Grant. http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/synchronicity/default.htm.

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, and Marie L. Radford. 2011. Seeking Synchronicity: Revelations and Recommendations for Virtual Reference. Dublin, OH: OCLC Research. http://www.oclc.org/reports/synchronicity/full.pdf.

References

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, and Simon Wakeling. 2012. To Use or Not to Use Worldcat.org: An International Perspective from Different User Groups. OCLC Internal Report.

Connaway, Lynn S., David White, and Donna Lanclos. 2011. “Visitors and Residents: What motivates engagement with the digital information environment?” Proceedings of the 74th ASIS&T Annual Meeting 48: 1-7.

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, Debra Wilcox Johnson, and Susan E. Searing. 1997. “Online Catalogs from the Users’ Perspective: The Use of Focus Group Interviews.” College and Research Libraries 58, no. 5: 403-420.

Davis, Christine S., Heather L. Gallardo, and Kenneth L. Lachlan. 2013. Straight Talk About Communication Research Methods. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt.

Dempsey, Lorcan. 2015. “Environmental Trends and OCLC Research.” Presented at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, September 28. http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/presentations/dempsey/dempsey-notre-dame-oclc-research-2015.pptx.

Dervin, Brenda, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, and Chandra Prabha. 2003-2006. Sense-making the Information Confluence: The Whys and Hows of College and University User Satisficing of Information Needs. Funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/past/orprojects/imls/default.htm.

References

Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books.

Glaser, Barney G., and Anselm Strauss. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine Pub. Co.

Hernon, Peter, and Ellen Altman. 1998. Assessing Service Quality: Satisfying the Expectations of Library Customers. Chicago, IL: American Library Association.

Kvale, Steinar. 1996. InterViews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Outing, Steve. 2015. “Bedrock of Libraries Has Been Shaken; What’s Next?” KnightBlog, August 11. http://www.knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2015/8/11/bedrock-libraries-has-been-shaken-whats-next/.

Pattillo, Gary. 2016. “Fast Facts.” College & Research Libraries News 77, no. 3: 164.

Pattillo, Gary. 2016. “Fast Facts.” College & Research Libraries News 77, no. 2: 100.

Pattillo, Gary. 2016. “Fast Facts.” College & Research Libraries News 77, no. 1: 52.

References

Prasse, Michael J., and Lynn Silipigni Connaway. 2008. “Usability Testing: Method and Research.” In Academic Library Research: Perspectives and Current Trends, edited by Marie L. Radford and Pamela Snelson, 214-252. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, a Division of the American Library Association.

Radford, Marie L., and Lynn Silipigni Connaway. “‘Screenagers’ and Live Chat Reference: Living Up to the Promise.” Scan 26, no. 1 (2007): 31–39. http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/archive/2007/connaway-scan.pdf.

Radford, Marie L., Lynn Silipigni Connaway, and Chirag Shah. 2011-2013. Cyber Synergy: Seeking Sustainability through Collaboration Between Virtual Reference and Social Q&A Sites. Funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/synergy/default.htm.

Ranganathan, S. R. 1931. The Five Laws of Library Science. London: Edward Goldston, Ltd.

Rosa, Kathy, and Tom Storey, eds. 2016. “American Libraries in 2016: Creating Their Future by Connecting, Collaborating and Building Community.” IFLA Journal. In Press.

Rushkoff, Douglas. 1996. Playing the Future: How Kids’ Culture Can Each Us to Thrive in an Age of Chaos. New York: HarperCollins.

Thaler, Mark, and Tim Pittman. 2015. “A Student View of Academic Libraries.” Dialogue 27: 10-11.

References

Wakeling, Simon, Paul Clough, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Barbara Sen, and David Tomás. Forthcoming. ”Users and Uses of a Global Union Catalogue: a Mixed-Methods Study of WorldCat.org.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.

White, David S., and Lynn Silipigni Connaway. 2011-2014. Digital Visitors and Residents: What Motivates Engagement with the Digital Information Environment. Funded by JISC, OCLC, and Oxford University. http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/vandr.html.

White, David, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Donna Lanclos, Erin M. Hood, and Carrie Vass. 2014. Evaluating Digital Services: A Visitors and Residents Approach. http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/evaluating-services/. Whyte, William F. “On Making the Most of Participant Observation.” The American Sociologist 14, no. 1 (1979): 56-66.

Zhang, Jie, and Nevin Mayer. 2014. “Proactive Chat Reference: Getting in the Users’ Space.” College & Research Libraries News 75, no. 4: 202-205.

Zweizig, Douglas. 1996. The Tell It! Manual. Chicago: ALA.

References