- 29% look for magazines/newspapers more than once a week but the next largest number (24%) never look
- many find articles through a search engine search, or by physically looking for the item in the library
- most often looked for content is current event/news (26%) followed by health (21%)
- the vast majority (86%) are satisfied w/ the way they search and what they find. they would, in the main, find a central search useful.
so ~ here's my thought (as she nosedives into a huge pool of uncertainty!) Why do we offer databases like OneFile which offers lots of magazine resources at our fingertips? How important is it - for adults, for students? Are they finding these ~ freely ~ from other sources (like school databases)? Is it better to redirect our budget and resources to other content instead?
my disclaimer here is that i am picking on OneFile for a couple of reasons: it carries a larger price tag than Academic Search and it is our general all-purpose database.
this post is most interested to hear your opinions about the use of this database, about carrying databases in general, about your opinion on the results of this survey. i'm even taking a leap and am going to write a momo article so that you devoted blog readers will hopefully get others who will want to comment to this one.
8 comments:
My first observation about this survey is that a lot of people THINK they’re satisfied by what they’re finding until they talk to a librarian who shows them how much more is out there. This is certainly the case with Internet searching. How many times have we all talked to a patron who says that they’ve already searched Google and found nothing and when we do a search we find all kinds of information (and we can show them how to tell the good from the bad).
I would hate to see the District eliminate OnfeFile for many reasons:
• Just because kids in public schools may have access to it doesn’t mean that they can access it after hours (or have any idea how to do this).
• We have a large homeschool population which does not have access to databases any other way.
• Not all seekers of articles are school kids; many are adults looking for a specific article or information on a subject.
• OneFile provides full-text access to New York Times, an important source.
I don't think the survey that was conducted was broad enough or representative enough to use to make big decisions which impact service. Could you show us the number of hits the various databases get monthly? What other types of input are you planning to gather before making this decision?
In response to the comment on the 13th (thank you!), there were only 49 respondents to the survey. Yes a very small number. Is it representative enough? Not sure - there's always the interpretation and what did they really mean questions that happen when you analyze a survey. To this end, the web team is in the process of developing yet another survey instrument. This time, we want to take it to focus groups for input, give and take, conversation to better discern their information/research needs.
And, yes, i collect database statistics monthly and this certainly plays into the analysis of them.
Lastly, i would throw the question back to you as to what kind of input should i be getting and how?
thx for your comments!
Many patrons are unaware that magazines and journals are available online through the ALD website. When they seek information, and I show them how to find what they wish, they are very amazed and pleased with what ALD offers. Many of these patrons will take notes so that they can later seek online articles on their own.
I think that marketing of databases is not adequate. Lisa Priebe from Clic has reiterated that point. The stats are low across the State for that matter. In my opinion certain resoures are "must haves" otherwise we might as well call it a day and shut our doors.
That being said, I would also say that Gales's Onefile and well as General Reference Gold are too huge to be very useful. The older versions that were smaller were much more effective. I have discovered that the only way to get relevant information is to conduct an advanced search and limiting by a specific publication. Otherwise, many of the hits will come from a lot of seemingly obscure publications. So, I would go back to GAle and tell them that this database needs to be reduced in size. A well-targeted search in Google is better compared to this database.
Academic Search Premier are not comparable databases. It's the only one we have with scholarly materials, right now.
Suzanne Kaller
I continually teach patrons (and yes, sometimes PSS staff) how to use InfoTrac. Granted, there are times that other databases contain the needed information (such as Literature Resource Center). However, when I show patrons how to limit their searches to a specific magazine / journal title, they are very appreciative. Most do not know these databases are accessible from home.
I agree with everything the previous commenters have said.
Onefile is a staff tool until it is taught to the patron. I often use this database several times a week helping patrons find needed information in Consumer Reports, Time, and other publications. Once a patron watches a staff person perform a search they are usually very comfortable taking a database brochure home with them and using the databases on their own computer.
I think we sometimes forget that patrons needed just as much help in the precomputer age using the Green and Red "Guide to Periodical Literature" books and the results were much more limited.
Pamela Bagby
You really can't compare the Academic Search Premier database with Infotrac. ASP articles are from mainly trade journals that have to be approved by a panel of experts (juried journals). Infotrac has mainly articles from popular magazines, etc and a few trade journals.
The updated version of Infotrac is much inferior to the past version. When you do a search you get a lot of very obscure magazines and useless shorter articles. The older version had an easy to use division of the articles by subtypes. They have eliminated that feature which was most useful.
I would suggest keeping ASP and finding a complete replacement for Infotrac. We have to have something to offer for that "less academic" searcher. Doing an advance search is a nice idea but you must select limited titles with that approach.
Donna Keslin
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