Session Report:
User Behavior in the Electronic Library: The Case for Adaptive and Flexible Interfaces
by Oya Y. Rieger, Cornell University Library

Mann Library, part of the Cornell University Library, developed the Mann Library Gateway, a set of Web pages that can guide the user to many electronic resources, including both proprietary and free resources (http://www.mannlib.cornell.edu). At the time of this study, there were over 600 resources, and now there are nearly 1000. These resources could be full-text, bibliographic, numeric and spatial, or graphical. The resources are grouped by broad subject categories, and a search box is provided to search the descriptions of the databases. Oya Rieger presented the results of a user study intended to evaluate the use of the Gateway and to gather information about user requirements. The study was conducted between January and September 1996, by means of Mann Library staff focus groups involving 54 staff members and faculty and student surveys involving 26 faculty members and 16 students. The findings of the study were -- 65% of the faculty and 88% of the students were unaware of the number and variety of resources available through the Gateway when asked to estimate the number of resources. -- 77% of the faculty and 44% of the students used only one or two databases -- faculty followed their tried and tested methods for gathering information in areas they were unfamiliar with, relying on colleagues and known experts in these areas. E-mail was used frequently as a tool. -- very simple search strategies were used in searching bibliographic databases: 84% of the faculty and 100% of the students used only keyword searching. The other 16% of the faculty would also search for works by a known author.

• the Gateway (a catalog of resources, not the resources themselves) was misused and underutilized. Users would confuse it with the online catalog, or expect it to behave like an Internet search engine, and would enter keywords that described the subject they were researching instead of entering more general terms that would help them locate an appropriate database or other resource. -- faculty were usually under time constraints when doing their research, while students tended to do only quick and dirty research. Both groups regarded the categorization of resources as a waste of time rather than as a useful tool. They did not take the time to explore this tool. -- when asked about the desirability of a multiple-database search engine which would present a common user interface, users responded with these ideas and concerns:
• this would promote new database discovery, a benefit -- users were concerned about information overload, duplicate retrieval of resources, and slow response time
• the simple interface required by such as system (a lowest common denominator approach) would be okay
• at the same time," back door" access to the native interfaces to the various databases would still be desirable.

A detailed account of the findings will be published in: Payette, Sandy; Rieger, Oya Y., Supporting Scholarly Inquiry: Incorporating Users in the Design of the Digital Library, Journal of Academic Librarianship, to be published in January, 1998.

Library Online Catalog Use in the Web Environment: The Experience of a Public Library, by Dan Iddings, Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh

The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (http://www.clpgh.org) is a 40 library consortium in Alleghany County, Pennsylvania. The Web is the common (only) user interface to electronic library resources, including the online catalog (DRA). The Library has 700-750 public access machines running Netscape and about 300 staff machines. These machines have unrestricted access to everything on the World-Wide Web. Dan Iddings demonstrated the creative ways to integrate the online catalog with library-produced finding aids, and other resources on the Internet, including local sites on the Three Rivers Free-Net (owned and operated by the public library).

• The Guide to Popular Subjects page originated as a 25-30 page booklet used at the Reference Desk. The Web version (http://www.clpgh.org/clp/subject/) contains links to the appropriate section of the online catalog, links to the library department that handles that subject, and links to Internet resources on that subject.
• The Author Sheets (http://www.clpgh.org/clp/Humanities/authorhome.html) contain references to works held by the library that might not be retrieved by searching on the author's name, but which nevertheless contain substantial information about that author. The title of the work is a link to the entry in the online catalog.
• The Three Rivers Lecture Series (http://trfn.clpgh.org/trls/) has a section where links will do online catalog searches of books both by and about the scheduled lecturers.
• The CLP's New York Times bestseller page (http://192.204.3.4/clp/Humanities/nytimes/) links to the online catalog (when the title is held), and to reviews and excerpts.

Using a totally Web-based approach has these benefits:
-- a consistent user interface;
-- interoperability with other Web-based resources;
-- finding tools are easily created and integrated with other resources;
-- links from the online catalog to relevant Web sites are easily created (e.g., the Three Rivers Free-Net Web site pages are cataloged)

Some issues the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has faced: -- workstations are popular and staff have to do some policing to insure everyone gets access -- many patrons are using a mouse for the first time and need help with this.

Where our Patrons Go in Cyberspace: Click-Stream Analysis in an Academic Research Library, Laura Cousineau and John Little, Duke University (Derek Lane and Jim Coble, co-investigators)

The data for this study was collected between January and June, 1997. At the beginning of this period, the main interface to the online catalog was Telnet, switching to a Web interface in the spring. There were a limited number of workstations which had Internet access, while other workstations had access to the online catalog or to in-house databases. A proxy server was used to capture information Internet resources being accessed, the accessing workstations, time of day, etc.

This study was designed to answer these questions:
-- How are our patrons using the Web: to access library resources? to find other academic resources? for recreational use?
-- Does recreational use crowd out academic use? Scarce resources (number of computers, number of network connections, physical space, and funding) require that the existing resources be targeted appropriately. The library has no desire to censor access to the Internet.

Over a period of six months, the proxy server recorded every click at 33 selected workstations in four area: the main library (near the reference desk), the public documents department, Lilly Library and the Chemistry Library. The busy periods for each of the four locations were selected for analysis. (Graphic images were not included in counts of files accessed.)

For this study, a library resource was defined as any server whose name ended in ělib.duke.eduî or any server for subscription electronic resources. Other URLs had to be manually classified as academic or not academic. A Web site was considered to be academic if that site contained information which was similar to information contained in resources currently collected by the reference department.

Results:

130,000 site selections were made during the periods selected for analysis
7,000 distinct server addresses were accessed
The 100 most frequently selected domain names represent 30% of the selections
Library resources represented 30% of the 130,000 selections
73% of the selections were Academic
25% of the selections were not Academic
2% were Unknown

Top Eight Academic Sites:

Academic Web Sites	Results
	# of Hits	page info
ducatalog.lib.duke.edu	25006	online catalog
www.lib.duke.edu	9835	library home page
home.netscape.com	6978
sbweb2.med.iacnet.com	5682	Infotrac on the Web
www.yahoo.com	2392
www.duke.edu	1949	University Home Page
frontier.lib.duke.edu	1925	ERL and e-reserves server
search.yahoo.com	1691

Top Eight Non-Academic Sites:

Non-Academic Web Sites	Results
	# of Hits	page info
espnet.sportszone.com	1809
www.smokers.com	678
www.goduke.com	457
www.chelseafc.co.uk	430	Soccer Club
www.rent.net	267	Web Ticketron
countrysong.com	257
games-espnet.sportszone.com	235
members.aol.com	198

Several reference librarians noted that sites which appear to be recreational (or even pornographic) in nature could be accessed as part of legitimate academic studies.