[ARL Logo]

arl-ereserve: (Gary Momenee LISTNAMEHERElt;momenee@email.unc.eduLISTNAMEHEREgt;: E-Reserves article to post)

arl-ereserve: [Gary Momenee <momenee@email.unc.edu>: E-Reserves article to post]

[Gary Momenee <momenee@email.unc.edu>: E-Reserves article to post]

Jeff Rosedale (rosedale@columbia.edu)
Fri, 20 Jun 97 9:28:56 EDT 

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 97 9:28:56 EDT
From: Jeff Rosedale <rosedale@columbia.edu>
To: arl-ereserve@cni.org
Subject: [Gary Momenee <momenee@email.unc.edu>: E-Reserves article to post]
Message-Id: <CMM.0.90.4.866813336.rosedale@aloha.cc.columbia.edu>

Return-Path: <momenee@email.unc.edu>
Received: from mailrelay1.cc.columbia.edu (mailrelay1.cc.columbia.edu [128.59.35.143])
	by mailhub1.cc.columbia.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA02619
	for <rosedale@mailhub1.cc.columbia.edu>; Fri, 20 Jun 1997 09:13:01 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from listserv.oit.unc.edu (listserv.oit.unc.edu [152.2.25.17])
	by mailrelay1.cc.columbia.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA22861
	for <rosedale@columbia.edu>; Fri, 20 Jun 1997 09:13:01 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from [152.2.62.59] ([152.2.62.59]) by listserv.oit.unc.edu with SMTP id <222651-4078> convert rfc822-to-8bit; Fri, 20 Jun 1997 08:12:02 -0400
Date: 	Fri, 20 Jun 1997 08:14:57 +0000
From: Gary Momenee <momenee@email.unc.edu>
Sender: momenee@email.unc.edu
Subject: E-Reserves article to post
To: rosedale@columbia.edu
Message-ID: <MailDrop1.2d7dPPC.970620081457@aalul7.lib.unc.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT

Jeff,

     Since you mentioned it in your listserv, I've received numerous requests
for Lydia Petersen's article on electronic reserves.  Would you post the article
on the listserv for your group?  Thanks.

Gary Momenee

_______________________________________________________

What Do Students Want from Electronic Reserves?
House Undergraduate Library-University of North Carolina

Like many other libraries, the House Undergraduate Library at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill has sought to improve access to and distribution
of their reserve reading collection and has been researching the purchase and
implementation of an electronic reserve system.  A number of options exist
within the constraints of technology and copyright law for the design of
electronic reserve systems.  However, attention to what end-users want from
these systems has been noticeably absent in the published literature.  During
the Spring of 1997, users of the Undergraduate Library9s reserve collection were
surveyed to gather information about how students use the current reserve
set-up, to inquire about the features students would like to see in an
electronic reserve system, and to create a general demographic profile of the
students who use reserve and their computer literacy.  
	
The majority (61%) of the 196 respondents to this survey stated that around the
clock access to an electronic reserve system was 3essential.2  Students were
nearly unanimous in their agreement that electronic reserves be accessible from
outside the library.  These findings suggest that World Wide Web-based delivery
of readings would satisfy the demands of most users.  Furthermore, the Web is
familiar to at least 85% of reserve users.  This familiarity could work to the
library9s advantage by reducing the amount of time the library would have to
spend training students how to use the system.  
	
Most libraries that have designed their own electronic reserve systems use the
World Wide Web.  However, these systems rely on helper applications to view the
documents.  Since about half of the respondents indicated that they were only
beginners at installing new programs on personal computers, who will help
students with these problems is an issue that must be addressed if the library
chooses to deliver reserve readings on the Web.
	
To expect students to read and study electronic reserve materials on a computer
terminal would be a mistake.  Very few survey respondents at Carolina are
willing to read reserve materials from a computer screen.  The overwhelming
majority, nearly 83%, want to study these readings from printed copies. 
	
Students at Carolina, not surprisingly, have indicated that they would not be
willing to pay any more for copies printed from electronic reserve than they do
for photocopies (10").  Only seven of 194 respondents said they would pay more
than that.  Students are willing to invest more time than money in electronic
reserve systems.  When asked how long they would be willing to wait for a twenty
page document to print from electronic reserve, most students (68%) said they
would be willing to wait up to five minutes.  One hundred thirty-two of the 195
respondents to this question said they were willing to spend the same amount of
time to learn a new system as they had spent learning the old and 46 respondents
were willing to spend more time than they spent learning to use the current
system.  Most students will limit their copying to no more than 20 pages per
document.  Therefore, electronic reserve is probably not the best way to deliver
lengthy documents.  

How students learn about reserve readings often influences how they will search
for those materials.  Almost 82% of students learn what is on reserve either
directly from their instructors or from their course syllabi.  Therefore it's no
surprise that close to 90% of students locate their reserve materials using
their instructor9s name or the course number as access points.  These findings
have important implications for electronic reserve system design.  Commercially
available systems tout the fact that users may search for materials by a number
of access points:  course number, instructor9s name, author of material, title
of material, and other bibliographic information.  Providing all these search
facilities may be a vain effort if students indicate that they rarely ever
search for materials except by course-specific attributes.   
	 
Students9 search practices have important ramifications for copyright issues.
The Fair Use Guidelines for Electronic Reserve Systems drafted by the Conference
on Fair Use advised that 3access to materials in the electronic reserve system
should be limited to department, faculty name, and/or course number.2  At
Carolina, this restriction on access points would not obstruct students9 ability
to find materials since they almost always seem to search for reserve materials
through course-related information anyway.  
	
Many libraries that have developed electronic reserves have felt hindered by
copyright compliance issues.  Publishers have been slow to work with libraries
in developing strategies to deliver copyrighted reserve materials to students
electronically.  Until the copyright waters become less murky, an electronic
reserve system that delivers only copyright-free materials may still be a
successstudents at Carolina indicated that, on the whole, non-copyrighted
materials (i.e., exams and lecture notes) are more useful to them than
copyrighted items (i.e., books, book sections, and journal articles).
	
Students at Carolina are over-whelmingly in favor of replacing the current
Reserve system with an electronic Reserve system (127 of the 196 respondents, or
70.9% of the valid responses).  What accounts for this sentiment is an
interesting issue to explore.  Statistical tests to measure the association
between this variable and others in the questionnaire revealed that a student9s
level of computer expertise seemed to predict whether students wanted to use
electronic reserve.  Respondents who indicated any familiarity at all with
computers were more likely to favor replacing the current system with an
electronic reserve system.  
	
Students at Carolina want a system where they can search for reserve materials
by either their instructor9s name or by course number.  They also want a system
that is accessible from outside the library and that is available 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week.  The system should be proficient at generating printed
output, but the speed at which the documents print is not critical.  Exams and
course notes should comprise the core of the collection and copyrighted
documents should be available as long as the cost of printing them does not
exceed that of making a photocopy.  If readings have to be printed at a central
station to facilitate the collection of fees, that location should be the
Undergraduate Library and payment should be made through a debit card system.
Students would also like to see other output options available that would allow
them to take away electronic copies that they could edit or change in word
processing applications.
	
By migrating reserve services to an electronic environment, the library can do
not only students, but itself, a great favor.  Electronic reserve is a perfect
arena for libraries and students to explore the potential of networked
distribution of information.  With attention to what users want out of such
systems, a library can develop strategies that can greatly improve the quality
of service they are able to offer.

Lydia Petersen
petel@ruby.ils.unc.edu

Lydia graduated from UNC's School of Information and Library Science in May.
_____________________________
from:
UGLi NewsLetter (no. 67, June 1997)
Undergraduate Librarians Discussion Group
Gary Momenee, editor
momenee@email.unc.edu



___________________________________________

Gary Momenee
R.B. House Undergraduate Library, CB#3942
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890

NET: momenee@email.unc.edu
TEL: 919.962.1355
FAX: 919.962.0484

    
-----

This is my signature

[CNI Home Page]