User Behavior during the Book Selection Process
(2006) User Behavior during the Book Selection Process. In Grove, Andrew, Eds. Proceedings 69th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) 43, Austin (US).
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Abstract
We study user behavior during the stage of the book selection process in which people study the content of a book to decide whether it will be useful for their intended purpose. 24 undergraduates participated in a balanced study in which they were given a topic-book pair and asked to decide whether the book was useful for the topic; we report on the accuracy of the participants’ decisions, the extent to which they use the table-of-contents and the index, and the impact of the medium on the book selection process. We discuss barriers to accurate book selection and consider what can be learned, at the applied and theoretical levels, from further study of this activity.
| Keywords: | book selection ; undergraduates ; college students ; user behavior |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | B. Information use and sociology of information. > BH. Information needs and information requirements analysis. H. Information sources, supports, channels. > HE. Print materials. C. Users, literacy and reading. > CB. User studies. |
| ID Code: | 8100 |
| Deposited By: | Medeiros, Norm |
| Deposited On: | 12 December 2006 |
| All fields: | Show all fields |
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