Thursday, October 3, 2002

Students and Faculty Members Turn to Online Library Materials Before Printed Ones, Study Finds By SCOTT CARLSON Atlanta An expansive study of the information-gathering habits of students and faculty members has found that they first turn to online materials, although most view print as a more reliable source of information. The study was conducted by Outsell, a research company that analyzes trends in the information-content industry, for the Digital Library Federation. It was the topic of a packed session at the Educause conference here. Leigh Watson Healy, a vice president for Outsell who supervised the study, says that print books and journals remain the most important information resource for students, researchers, and instructors. For example, according to the study, 97 percent of respondents used print books and journals for their work. Meanwhile, online abstracts and indexes were used by 88 percent, online databases were used by 82 percent, e-journals were used by 75 percent, and e-books by a paltry 18 percent. The researchers found similar figures among resources used for teaching and learning. Use of electronic resources varied from discipline to discipline, as researchers in law, business, and biology tended to rely on electronic information as much as 78 percent of the time, while researchers in the arts and humanities used online sources only 36 percent of the time. Most respondents tended not to trust online sources of information. Ms. Healy says that 96 percent of the people polled said they verified online information through some other source, either an instructor or print material. Despite the triumph of print as a reliable source of information, Ms. Healy says that most of the respondents tended to go first to online sources in studies and research. Almost 90 percent of researchers said they went online first, then consulted print sources. About 75 percent of students said they used the Internet first, then went to a professor or librarian for assistance, and consulted print sources last. Ms. Healy says that the trust in the print sources combined with the initial reliance on online sources is a compelling "disconnect." "They tell us that they use the Internet and rely on it heavily. However, they trust the library more," she says. "There is an interesting gap there." The study also looked at library-use patterns. Undergraduates said that they spent a third of their study time in the library, and half of their study time at home. In a finding that surprised the researchers, faculty members said they spent only 10 percent of their work time in the library; 85 percent of the time, they worked in their office or at home. Thirty-five percent of respondents said that they use the library "significantly less" than they did two years ago; that figure was higher, at 43 percent, among faculty members. Daniel Greenstein, the executive director of the California Digital Library who is the librarian for the University of California system, says that the study points to a great cultural shift in the concept of a library. The old paradigm of a library was to hoard information and hold it in one place, he says, but the Internet is changing that; libraries need to find ways to offer information more widely in electronic forms. "The real change is a cultural one, and it's deep," he says. "Users are telling us it's all about access, and libraries are all about ownership, and this is a problem. [Users] are telling us that the place doesn't matter." Outsell's researchers conducted more than 3,200 interviews with faculty members, undergraduates, and graduate students from small liberal-arts colleges and public and private research institutions. The interviews, each of which lasted about a half-hour, were conducted from November 2001 to January 2002. Ms. Healy said that the figures were based on "impressions" and estimates offered by the respondents. Mr. Greenstein says that the results of the study will appear on the Council on Library and Information Resources' Web site within a month. Background articles from The Chronicle: Students Find Web Inadequate as a Research Tool, Survey Shows (8/9/2002) Do Libraries Really Need Books? (7/12/2002) The Deserted Library: As Students Work Online, Reading Rooms Empty Out -- Leading Some Campuses to Add Starbucks (11/16/2001) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

College presidents circulate a statement decrying threats against Jewish students Scientists decode 2 genomes in breakthrough that could help halt malaria Report urges changes at community colleges to prepare students for high-paying jobs Law school settles professor's wrongful-termination suit for $1.2-million Government awards $8.5-million in grants to support nursing education and opportunities Students and faculty members turn to online library materials before printed ones, study finds Chinese institutions look toward distance education Lawmaker yanks Webcasting bill to permit negotiations on royalties