This report is based on a series of presentations at the second CLIR Seminar on "Participatory Design of Academic Libraries," held at the University of Rochester's River Campus June 5-7, 2013. Participatory design is a relatively recent approach to understanding library user behavior. It is based on techniques used in anthropological and…

The circulation records from 1997/98 to 2007/08 for UCLA and from 2000/01 to 2007/08 for Pasadena City College (PCC) were analyzed to examine patterns in the use of print materials during a period of increasingly available online digital information resources. The analysis included examinations of longitudinal circulation patterns broken down by…

Relatively little is known about the information-seeking patterns of students using college libraries. In order to assess the bibliographic search process of students, a questionnaire and log form were given to 55 undergraduate students at Bucknell University's Bertrand Library. Forty-seven students completed the log and questionnaire. Each of the…

A survey of student life patterns and library use at the Community and Technical College of the University of Toledo was made. From the results of the student survey it is clear that student life patterns could not easily be "synchronized" with present library delivery service patterns. The knowledge gained about student life patterns…

This new column discusses the need for gaining administrative and academic support for library instruction programs to improve "library literacy," i.e., the learning of the basic skills for finding information, and summarizes the findings of a five-year experiment at the University of Colorado to improve/increase faculty and student…

To what extent is the print reference collection being used? Use of the print collection at a small private university was tracked for a four-month period. The results suggest that the reference collection is too big and underused.

This study reports an analysis of some aspects of the use of periodicals by freshmen at the University of North Carolina, as related to the undergraduate and other campus libraries. The study also asks whether the dispersion of citations, among periodicals cited by freshmen in bibliographies of required term papers, conforms to a general law of…

A study was undertaken to examine the relationship between use of Seaver Science Library at the University of Southern California and selected personal characteristics of students in four science classes (two undergraduate, two graduate), selected from those courses for which materials were on reserve at Seaver library. A questionnaire was…

In a study of library use and research behavior, 91 undergraduate and 68 graduate business students at California State University San Marcos were surveyed and observed for query formulation and task assignments, prereference process expectations, and postreference process responses. Findings support past research by pointing to user impatience…

The results of three surveys conducted in 1983--one of Texas Tech University students, one of the library staff, and one of faculty members--indicated that all three populations surveyed agreed that the library should provide bibliographic instruction for students. Preliminary profiles of user needs were developed on the basis of responses to the…

During a typical week of spring quarter, 1975, interviews were conducted with 3,802 people as they left facilities at the University of Washington library system. The randomly selected respondents included students, staff members, and faculty of the university, as well as nonuniversity members. In particular, the study investigated the use of…

This research study addressed four issues relating to subject searching in online catalogs: faculty and student use of subject searching in library catalogs; users' knowledge of and use of the Library of Congress Subject Headings List (LCSH) in a controlled subject heading search; strategies for teaching effective subject searching; and users'…

This study examines the role of the user study as a management tool in academic libraries and proposes a task-oriented survey method to estimate the library clientele's need for documents. Research on work and task-oriented information studies is discussed and applied to the development of a survey instrument. A case study employing the…

This report describes a research project designed to improve the University of Wisconsin-Stout (UW-S) Library Learning Center services to students with learning disabilities. Three groups were surveyed to gather the information needed to improve services. Learning disabled students at the UW-S campus were asked to identify problems encountered in…

A study of five Texas academic libraries provided information on OPAC use by Korean college students to assist system managers select OPACs. The study determined that academic level and age influence preference for the type of OPAC system, that more specific search instructions are needed, and that system menus were the most commonly used source…