Summer School on E-publishing: The digital transition and all that

David NicholasCIBER

University College Londondavid.nicholas@ucl.ac.uk

www.ucl.ac.uk/slais/research/ciber

Massive changes to the information environment as it has moved to the

virtual• From mediated to non mediated• From bibliographic systems to full-text, visual,

interactive and on to social networks• From a few searchers to everybody• From little choice to massive choice • From little growth to massive growth• From stability to volatility• From known to unknown• From user to consumer

Has to be a focus on the digital consumer

• Let us not kid ourselves really only one benchmark for us – and we know it. Content might have been king, but the consumer is now king

• As a profession have been bleating on about users for years, but not really made much progress. In many (but not all) cases bleating is a substitute for action. After all how many libraries (or publishers) have a Department of User studies?

• Success in delivering greater access, but we going to have to pick up the tab soon as a number of factors are conspiring to remove us from centre stage.

Biggest factor the digital transition

• E-books will fast-forward the process• Could lead to disconnection with the user base.• Users becoming more remote, anonymous and other

information players (publishers) now know more about them that us.

• Users behave in the virtual space very, very differently and in danger of working with the wrong information seeking paradigm (more about this later). Needs to be wholesale questioning of assumptions made about today’s information-enfranchised scholar, especially the younger ones (GoogleGen).

• Librarians (and less so publishers) know less about audience than others. TESCO!

Equally big factor scholarly outcomes/impacts

• Access card has run its course• Have to move beyond that

warm feeling• What do we think is good/bad

information seeking?• How do we know 24/7

provision is helping us?• Are there obvious outcomes

associated with it?• The car park question!

Nightmare scenario: decoupling from everybody!

• From users. Library increasingly anonymous third parties. We are all librarians now.

• From publishers; they own powerful virtual libraries and they are increasingly moving into our territory. OUP example. Librarians in danger of alienating their old ‘mates’, the publishers, over OA and IR?

• From faculty. As library ‘tax’ increases and information is seen to be ‘free’ and ubiquitous. Impact and outcome data will be demanded and increase access arguments alone will not win the day.

What can be done to avoid death from disconnection?

•Recognise users are consumers (choice)•Move from monitoring activity to monitoring users •(I know this is hard) Make up with publishers, in order to get user data and brand.•Brand is a big and confusing issue. TESCO! Do not confuse this with brand ‘cool’.•Get closer to users by demonstrating you understand them – need data for this (Establish that Department of User Studies)

CIBER hopefully leading the way

• Methods, ideas & data from 8 years of CIBER researching digital transition. Focus on most current research – the Virtual Scholar.

• SuperBook, E-book National Observatory and RIN ‘value’ project

The Virtual Scholar

The digital information footprintThe digital information footprint

Information Seeking Characteristics

ActivityMetrics

User Characteristics

1. Number of pages viewed2. Number of full-text downloads3. Number of sessions conducted4. Site penetration5. Time spent viewing a page6. Time spent on a session7. Number of searches undertaken in a session8. Number of repeat visits made9. Number of journals used10. Number of views per journal

1. Subject/ discipline2. Academic status3. Geographical location4. Institution5. Type of organization used to access the service6. User demographics

A. Type of content viewed1. Number of journals used in a session2. Names of journals used3. Subject of e-journal used5. Age of journal used6. Type of material viewed 7. Type of full-text view8. Size of article used9. Publication status of article

B. Searching style1.Search approach adopted2. Number of searches conducted in a session3. Number of search terms used in search4. Form of navigation

29 Key Features

Highlights: robots

• Best kept secret• Around half of all visitors to

a scholarly site are robots• In case of some AHRC sites

account for 90% of vistors• They mimic human

information seeking to get entry

• Makes you realize how things have changed

Highlights: diversity

• National differences: Germans the most ‘successful’ searchers and most active information seekers. Canadians and Australians more interested in older material

• Age differences: older users more likely to come back, and view abstracts. Elderly users had most problems searching – two thirds of searches obtained zero returns!

• Gender differences: women more likely to view articles in HTML and return to a site (less promiscuous!)

New research model: JISC National E-Book Observatory

• A geographical plot of IP addresses of participating universities

• Survey ran between 18 Jan and 1 March 2008, over which period 22,437 responses were received from 120+ universities.

GoogleGeneration

Did find :• No conceptual information map

to guide • High failure at the terminal -

serious worries about quality of searching

• Little time is spent in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy or authority.

• Big literacy concerns, and clear relationship between good literacy and academic outcomes

GoogleGeneration

However, the really big surprise :

• is that everyone has these ‘problems’

• And indeed our latest research is that the older folk are even better at skimming, bouncing, viewing etc than the kids.

Information seeking in the virtual space

• In broad terms scholarly behaviour can be portrayed as being active , bouncing, navigating, checking and viewing. It is also promiscuous, diverse and volatile

• Does this constitute a dumbing down?

Dumbed down information seeking?

• Study confirms what many are beginning to suspect: that the web is having a profound impact on how we conceptualise, seek, evaluate and use information. What Marshall McLuhan called 'the Gutenberg galaxy' - that universe of linear exposition, quiet contemplation, disciplined reading and study - is imploding, and we don't know if what will replace it will be better or worse. But at least you can find the Wikipedia entry for 'Gutenberg galaxy' in 0.34 seconds

Lesson for libraries in surviving and thriving

• Do not be side-tracked by social networks: look instead to huge opportunities coming from e-books, information literacy (e-citizens) and opportunities to describe information seeking like never before

• It seems the Web has enfranchised and disenfranchised at the same time.

• To survive in tomorrow’s information environment libraries need to claim a central position as trusted third parties in digital information chain.

• Need to reconnect with where their users are.

Conclusion

• Badly need leaders, demonstrating best practice through a genuinely evidence-based, user-focussed, consumer-friendly, Google-compatible services.

• Be flexible, innovative and change through e-observatories. But do not forget core business.

• Never forget the consumer has choice

Recent CIBER readings

Fieldhouse M, Nicholas D. Digital literacy as information savvy in Digital Literacy: Concepts, policies and practices. Edited by Colin Lankshers. New York: Peter Lang, 2008

Nicholas D. If we do not understand our users, we will certainly fail. The E-Resources Management Handbook. Vol 1, 2008, 122-129. http://www.uksg.org/serials#handbook

Nicholas D and Huntington P. Evaluating the use and users of digital journal libraries in Digital Libraries, Edited by Fabrice Papy. Hermes Publishing: Paris, 2008

Nicholas D, Huntington P, Jamali HR. User diversity: as demonstrated by deep log analysis. Electronic Library, 26(1), 2008, pp21-38

Nicholas D, Huntington P, Tenopir C, Jamali H, Dobrowolski T. Viewing and reading behaviour in a virtual environment: the full-text download. Aslib Proceedings 60 (3), 2008, pp186-198

Nicholas D, Rowlands I Editors. Digital Consumers. London: Facet, 2008 (July)http://www.facetpublishing.co.uk/index.shtml; http://www.neal-schuman.com/

 Nicholas D, Rowlands I, Jamali H, Olle C, Clark D Huntington P. UK scholarly e-book usage: a landmark survey. Aslib Proceedings 60 (4), 2008 [In Press]

Rowlands I and Nicholas D. Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future ('Google Generation' project). http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slais/research/ciber/downloads/