Sourcing information related to socio-scientific issues requires sophisticated literacies to read and evaluate conflicting accounts often signified by disagreement among experts, multiple solutions or misinformation. Much of the previous work exploring how young people approach conflicting information has tended to focus on students in the…

This paper compares website usability--specifically library users' understanding of library terms--for fifty-one original research studies between 2012-2021, with the findings of John Kupersmith's 2011 white paper "Library Terms That Users Understand." Studies reported approximately twice as many terms that users didn't understand than…

With the growth of digital media, learners are presented with multiple options to choose from when looking for resources to learn from. Learning that happens during searching for items to learn from is called Search-as-Learning (SaL). Recommender Systems (RS) can aid in SaL by reducing information overload and providing item suggestions. An…

This study utilizes COUNTER 5 data from the University of Dayton (UD) to measure full-text retrievals of e-journal articles from five major academic journal publishers (Taylor & Francis, SAGE, Oxford, Wiley, and Springer). Usage data from these publishers' e-journals within EBSCO is compared to the same content when accessed from publisher…

Nautical charts are an essential information resource for safe navigation. However, they are not only a useful resource for navigators; According to the International Hydrological Organization (IHO), they essentially fulfill two functions: 1) Maritime navigation, since most hydrographic services have the obligation to provide coverage of the…

Background: A priori assumptions about specific behavior in test items can be used to process log data in a rule-based fashion to identify the behavior of interest. In this study, we demonstrate such a top-down approach and created a process indicator to represent what type of information processing (flimsy, breadth-first, satisficing, sampling,…

While limited research on the information behaviors of community college students exists, the theories of Elfreda Chatman have not been used to develop understanding of this population. Community college students are more likely to be people of color and/or lower income than their peers in four-year colleges, making them potentially more likely to…

Background: Both PubMed and Ovid MEDLINE contain records from the MEDLINE database. However, there are subtle differences in content, functionality, and search syntax between the two. There are many instances in which researchers may wish to search both interfaces, such as when conducting supplementary searching for a systematic review to retrieve…

This article describes how with a non-formal education, a scholar has to choose courses among various domains to meet the research aims. In spite of this, the availability of large number of courses, makes the process of selecting the appropriate course a tedious, time-consuming, and risky decision, and the course selection will directly affect…

We study relevance judgment and user activities in a search session. We focus on ephemeral relevance--a contextual measurement regarding the amount of useful information a searcher acquired from a clicked result at a particular time--and two primary types of search activities--query reformulation and click. The purpose of the study is both…

Telephone interviews were conducted with 18 blind academic library users around the United States about their experiences using their library and its website. The study uses the perspective that blind users' insights are fundamental. A common theme was that navigating a webpage is time consuming on the first visit. Issues identified include the…

The questionnaires' origin (sources from which elements of the questionnaire are derived) and initial development (process of making a questionnaire from elements) should be assessed before their measurement properties. There is no Critical Appraisal Tool (CAT) that comprehensively assesses the origin and initial development of questionnaires…

Boolean logic can be a difficult concept for first-year, introductory students to grasp. This paper compares the results of Boolean and natural language searching across several databases with searches created from student research questions. Performance differences between databases varied. Overall, natural search language is at least as good as…

Recognizing the importance of designing educational opportunities that draw upon students' prior knowledge and experiences, this paper uses focus groups to explore how Spanish-speaking students in a graduate program at the University of Kansas (KU) in Lawrence understand academic information literacy practices within their new cultural contexts.…

This article describes the results of a systematic review of peer-reviewed, published research articles about "discovery layers," user-friendly interfaces or systems that provide single-search box access to library content. Focusing on articles in LISTA published 2009-2013, a set of 80 articles was coded for community of users, journal…