Journal article
A library or just another information resource? A case study of users' mental models of traditional and digital libraries
Stephann Makri, Ann Blandford, Jeremy Gow, Jon Rimmer, Claire Warwick, George Buchanan
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY | WILEY | Published : 2007
DOI: 10.1002/asi.20510
Abstract
A user's understanding of the libraries they work in, and hence of what they can do in those libraries, is encapsulated in their "mental models" of those libraries. In this article, we present a focused case study of users' mental models of traditional and digital libraries based on observations and interviews with eight participants. It was found that a poor understanding of access restrictions led to risk-averse behavior, whereas a poor understanding of search algorithms and relevance ranking resulted in trial-and-error behavior. This highlights the importance of rich feedback in helping users to construct useful mental models. Although the use of concrete analogies for digital libraries w..
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Awarded by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council