UW Libraries  Personas Development

• Complete degree requirements as efficiently as possible  
• Find out about current trends in the field of practice

• Takes too long to figure out how to search unfamiliar and complex databases
• NetID / Logon problems

• Uses a PDA to keep track of work schedule and class assignments
• Works from home using a high speed internet connection

• Become an expert in the field
• Publish original work

• No time to look up physical copies -- need online access to everything

• can usually troubleshoot and will try to help himself or use Chat help

 RESEARCH GOALS

• not always bound to a 10-week cycle -- long term research
• Are often leading research projects and need deeper knowledge**

• Intense article needs for in depth research*
• using library as part of graduate study (which is usually a subject they're interested in )
• want stuff we don't have here
• Goal: have access to <all> information they need
• using primary sources
• find answers in other laces than traditional textbooks
• lit review: need to find everything relevant
• are usually willing to wait for materials
• heavy users of books and articles
• need global access to research materials
  

• ‘… as a masters student or as an early Ph.D. student rushing through a course I might need a book and I need it today, and if I can’t get it today then forget it because the paper’s due two days from now. As a dissertation Ph.D. student I can say well, in the next 4weeks I need to have 70 books covered.’ [18]
• Graduate students use both print and electronic resources that are available through the university libraries. They search university library databases and indexes, online journals and other online resources for online articles, conference proceedings, reference materials, images and other materials. Graduate students use the libraries’ print resources, as well, citing use of books, print journals, and other materials. When they are unable to find the information they need using the university libraries, some students request items using the libraries’ interlibrary loan service, use materials from local universities and colleges, or from other public libraries. [18]
• For some (28%) information seeking is related to coursework; they aren’t involved in an extensive research project, most evident for the predominantly masters students in business and policy (55%). [18]
• "I'm working on my dissertation right now. I'm on the website probably more than any other website." [7]
•  "I pretty much use only UW materials. Because the UW has more than enough and the papers I've done so far have not been important enough to wait for loaned materials. " (Masters social work student) [17]
• graduate students’ searching is influenced by convenience, speed, and ease of access. Graduate students choose the resources and services that are most convenient and provide fast access. [18]

Research Skills

• not as research-savvy as we might assume
• need more help than they realize with research, info organization
• still need help sorting out resources
• need different help at different points while in grad school
• some up front instruction, some at point of need
• appreciate time saving tips that we sometimes assume they already know about (ex: "find on this page" browser tool)*
• need help interpreting guides/inventories to manuscript/archive collections
• know basics & need help with the advanced
• tired, has basic reference down, needs quick  and easy answers to specific questions (HSL)
• (always) use the resource that works, even if not appropriate**
• tell their students to sue the same resources they do, even if they're not appropriate

• Graduate students reported having trouble finding relevant information— the university library Website is confusing, relevant databases are hard to find, search engines are inadequate, obscure or older materials are difficult to find, or narrow or interdisciplinary fields of study are in short supply of materials. ‘I feel like there’s information in all of these drawers, and I don’t know which drawer to open.’ (P 178 business/policy) [18]
• Research skills of students entering graduate programs (e.g. conducting literature review and evaluating information sources), rated as low by faculty [1]
• Though graduate students might have considerable experience in the process of inquiry, they are still new to their current university library [18]
• skills and decisions about appropriate tools to use varied greatly by discipline [22]
• students are more receptive to library instruction early in their careers, but will also appreciate instruction later if it is specifically targeted to their information need. [22]
• Faculty often believe graduate students arrive at graduate school fully able to conduct scholarly research. Knowledge gaps are still present around subject database searching, ILL, etc.  Because of these assumptions, faculty may be unwilling to provide time within class for library instruction or they may neglect to mention librarians and libraries as resources.  Several researchers found graduate students recognized their information gaps, and would have liked targeted library instruction [22]
• Help-seeking varied widely by discipline:  72% of business & policy students sought help from librarians, but only 15% of engineering, 30% computer science, 50% humanities/sciences [18]
• Some graduate students (29%) use citation indexes like CiteSeer to search for full text articles and papers, valued because the database tracks the citations both forward and backward, in addition to providing the full text article. Graduate students who start with just a few well chosen references can go deeper and deeper into the literature. Articles, especially electronic, are preferred for the ability to easily track, and thus build a related body of literature quickly. [18]
• Nearly half of all graduate students use citation chaining to build a body of literature. Using relevant resources, students check references, bibliographies, endnotes and footnotes for other sources. They repeat their search using this new list of sources. Chaining enables students to search for a known citation and limits their need to use a general search that returns a huge amount of resources that are difficult and time-consuming to search. [18]
  
• A few (11%) are overwhelmed by all they have to do, impatient and want information quickly, or are reluctant to learn something new. [18]
  
• The organized information seeking behavior includes regular planning sessions with an advisor, planned search strategies, and use of citation chaining. The information seeking behavior of graduate students is iterative and becomes more refined and organized as they become more knowledgeable in their field of research. [18]
• A barrier to graduate students’ search for information is knowledge about or access to resources. [18]
  
• The differences between masters and doctoral students are evidenced by students’ lack of sophistication in their knowledge of resources and development of searching skills. [18]
• not always as up-to-date with library tools and new technologies as we might think they are; Many were unfamiliar citation databases, though almost all were aware of Google Scholar. few students were familiar with Web 2.0 tools such as RSS feeds or social bookmarking sites.  Because keeping up with the literature was one of the primary concerns students mentioned in the pre-assessment survey, learning about these types of tools was beneficial. [22]
• was library instruction helpful? A few students gave a qualified yes:•Helpful at time, but now forgotten;•Forgot stuff from when taught a year ago; •Timing of instruction to match research needed;•Beneficial, but too much at once;•Unless conducting the searches, won’t remember how to apply [19]
• 64% are confident in their evaluation skills and 59% say they usually find what they need [19]
• 28% report frustration trying to get full texts [19]
• 70% find conducting research tedious [19]
  
  

GETTING HELP

• want consultation with librarian in-depth meeting**
• detailed help needed specific subject
• some don't like to ask for help - like self-service options
  

• appreciate having a personal library liaison available to guide them through the research process [22]
• Our results suggest that VR services seem to have a special appeal to graduate students. A greater proportion of graduate students use VR than the reference desk, and graduate students rate VR services higher in terms of preference for reference options than undergraduates. Our research also confirms that graduate students prefer to work outside the library (off campus, or on campus but not in the library). It seems reasonable to assume that the appeal of VR for graduate students is in large part because of the way VR is able to reach users outside the library. [25]
• ideally, most graduate students (45%) want to learn how to conduct research 1:1 with an expert
  27% want a class
  15% want online tutorials
  14% want print or online guides [19]
• Because of cultural differences or problems with English, some are reluctant to ask questions or talk to strangers. [18]

Resource Types

• want online articles
• easy access to online content regardless of approach path
• seamless access to articles
• will use print or online - just want the information
• love Worldcat

• don't like Worldcat
• love online access to journal articles
• want federated searching
• new grad students experiment with multiple research methods and sources
• love J-stor
• don't want to use print even if it's a good article*
• can't find full-text articles
• more electronic textbooks
• want datasets
• datasets -- use or create
• unable to tell where their request (hold, summit, or ILL) is coming from

• Top service expansion priorities: 1. Scan on Demand for articles [70%], 2. Digitize Collections [50%], 3. Information Organization Help (38%) [1]
• "more electronic access is of highest importance to me" [1]
• prefer online resources that they can access through the internet and library website [18], [22]
• 77% describe the internet as a main resource:  "extremely useful," "primary method of searching," or "the next step after meeting with advisors" [18]
• half of all graduate students (50%) use the Internet (non-library) to search for online papers or articles. In many of the technical fields, authors publish their papers online and provide free access to up-todate materials. For some, especially those in fast-paced fields, the Internet is the source for current and cutting edge information [18]
• ‘…if I’m interested in just the latest developments probably the online is much easier to find something that’s been published maybe six months ago. So maybe the library doesn’t even carry, like, proceedings on conferences.’ [18]
• "Increased availability to full text articles, especially online would be EXTREMELY helpful" [19]
• "The ability to access full-text or PDF research articles online through the library subscriptions is my primary use of the library and is central to my research." Neurobiology Grad Student [20]
• "I use online library resources but do not go to the library. So easy online and too complicated and time consuming to pull an actual book or journal. " Social Work grad student [20]
• Print is dead, really dead;  If not online want digital delivery/too many libraries;  Go to physical library only as last resort [20]
• Health, Biosci, and Phy Sci/Engin primarily use library for online journal articles (50%-60%); hum/social science make more equal use of the catalog & online journal articles [20]
• The one change that would be most useful for me and many in my department would be to make more journal articles available electronically from older volumes. 90% of our trips to the physical library are spent finding and photocopying older articles from a few key journals in the field. Fisheries grad student [20]
• "Continue to expand access to journal articles online; this is a great resource."[6]
• primarily use journal articles rather than books [22]
• 58% also come to the library for print materials, esp. sciences (85%) and humanities (80%). (business & policy only 27 %). many resources (especially older articles, papers, and reports) are not yet available online. Students also prefer the printed book saying that reading books online is difficult. [18]
• The university library is important for DVD’s, videos, and services (e.g., ILL).[18]
  
• internet searching is popular because it is convenient, fast, current, and not divided into different locations based on discipline [18] [22]
  
•  "If I needed to look up something outside my discipline, I would just use the internet, wikipedia" [17]
• scholars at both the graduate and undergraduate levels see general and commercial search engines like Google and Amazon as extending their ability to practice scholarship. In some cases, these "commercially-based" searches take place in conjunction with academic resources that can be accessed through university library portals [21]
• used Google as an initial search tool in preparation for their library searches, to find a few key sources or authors and then look these up in the library to see how--that is, under what subject heading--these are categorized. Then they search in the library system using those subject keywords. [21]
• Provide library-related services and resources in our space not yours. Discovery begins primarily outside of library space with Google and Pub Med; Web of Science also important; Library services/tools seen as overly complex and fragmented [20]
• "I like Amazon for finding recent scholarship, so . . . I anticipate if I’m searching for something I’m going to get lots of the popular stuff that’s not appropriate for scholarly work, but Amazon is pretty good about . . . even having forthcoming stuff up there, and so I feel like that is sometimes the better place to go to find the latest scholarship than the library. The other thing that I like about Amazon, I mean, first of all, it seems to have a very good search function, whereas the library, I feel like sometimes it is hit or miss because really my understanding of the way it works, and I could be wrong about this, but I feel like it only is searching on whatever keywords some library person has used to describe that work, whereas Amazon is increasingly doing whole text searches and searching reviews. . . . It seems like the search function is better. The other thing that I like about it is a lot of times it’ll pull up stuff from other disciplines that I wouldn’t get word of mouth, so it might bring up stuff from history or human interface design or something like that, that I might not find any other way. There is some wading through because you have to go through all the stuff that’s not relevant or whatever . . . and a lot of times, the other thing that’ll happen on Amazon is I might be . . . looking up the scholar whose work I’m familiar with and I’ll realize that they’ve got this new book that is just out that I had no idea was just coming out, and I’ll be like so and so just has a new book out, whereas I wouldn’t necessarily sit down and think, you know, I wonder if John Smith has written a new book lately. .oh,  the other thing that I do, I often use Amazon in conjunction with the library home page, so I’ll search on Amazon first and then I’ll plug it in to our library to see if I can get it through the library[21]
• “[Access to online resources] has changed the way I do library research. It used to be a stage process: Initial trip, follow-up trip, fine-tuning trip. Now it’s a continuous interactive thing. I can follow-up anything at any time. While I’m writing I can keep going back and looking up items or verifying information.” Graduate Student, Psychology (2002 UW Libraries focus group) [20]
• "I wish the interface between scholar and UW libraries was better. I want to search with scholar, but use UW's credentials to access full-length articles. Right now, there are a lot of intermediary pages I need to visit." Bioengineering grad student [20]
• Content is primary link to the library. Identify library with ejournals; want more titles & backfiles [20]

Teaching

• both teaching and researching
• teaching classes
• are students and teachers

• About 15% of total graduate school population has a teaching assistantship [13]
•  While TAs’ overall technology use was lower than faculty or students’, in contexts where TAs had more responsibility they used more technology. In addition, TA respondents were less likely to use UW resources and staff as sources of technical support than were faculty respondents. Considering the high proportion of 100- and 200-level courses where TAs taught the course or taught a section, TA support should be a part of any discussion about undergraduate education at the UW. [4]

Faculty Proxies

• are proxies for faculty*
• work for faculty (HSL)
• helps do faculty research for course prep
• future faculty to predictors of where our services should be headed
• sometimes afraid to ask faculty "stupid" questions so they ask librarians instead
  

•  "[do you go through the libraries for data for your research?] Primarily. Although frankly I get my doctoral students to do that. I just had one hand me a disk with abstracts of 50 articles relating to one of our studies. " [7]

Time

• want longer hours (evening, weekend, interim)***
• multi-taskers (work, family, research, school)***
• have very little time*
• really busy -- need targeted, efficient service/resources
• impatient
• may be very "time-bound" -- only come to campus for classes, want to do everything from home/work

•  request for longer hours was the most frequent comment [5]
• 45% is a TA/RA/Fellowship etc in addition to being a student [13]
• The factor most frequently cited by graduate students (58%) was preference for convenience or the need to have information quickly as affecting their use and choice of resources, libraries and services. This varied across disciplines (46% in sciences to 65% in engineering, humanities). Some avoid using local libraries or the university library (parking is difficult, takes too much time). Others reported preferring online journals or online papers to the traditional paper copies because online is faster and  easier. They avoid interlibrary loan because it takes too much time and a few say they are too lazy to set up remote access to university library resources or go to the library and photocopy an article. [18]
• perceived lack of time impacts willingness to try new library tools and techniques among graduate students in all disciplines [22]
  

Technology

• don't have time to learn new things
• use all forms of social technologies personally / in research / with students
• writing & researching with technology / social web / blogs
• "smart phone" users
• "is there an iphone app for that?"
• some departments are tech-rich, others are tech-poor
• grateful for help with technology
• printer help
• like using web site
• 5+ years behind current freshmen in terms of technology

• grad students self rated as having the highest level of tech skills, males higher than females [4]
• perceived lack of time impacts willingness to try new library tools and techniques among graduate students in all disciplines [22]
• Professional students will be early adopters of PDAs on campus (ie in 2007, 52% of harvard medical students owned PDAs, the most used application was reference information (26%) [9]
• Lower-division students actually reported the lowest expertise among students. Student technological expertise increased with class standing Student expertise also increased with age. Data on student age show that students under 20 years of age reported a mean of 3.19 (n=137) on the expertise scale, compared to a mean of 3.43 for those over 25 (n=206). [4]
• Pervasively used technologies: email, course web pages, word processing, powerpoint [4]

Organizing Research

• need knowledge mgmt support as early as possible (RefWorks, endnote)***
• need help managing data & resources*
• some want data curatiory mgt services
• use citation software & tools
• manage large amount of information

• 3rd top rated service expansion priority was help in managing information and data [1]
• Data and reference management important to some, Bioresearcher toolkit, EndNote, JabRef, StatA [20]
  

Space

• use library website from home
• connect from off campus
• like Suzzallo espresso
• use library website in the library
  
• RA's and TA's need meeting space
• need study space*
• study rooms
• work from many different locations
• may not have a physical "home" on campus (or office, or carrel)
• need quiet spaces
• want outlets to use own laptop
• short term parking
  

• More grad students now connect from off campus than from on campus. [1]

• 72% connect remotely at least twice a week [1]

• From 1998 to 2007, offcampus use tripled and on-campus remote use doubled [1]
• Top library destinations: Suzzallo-Allen, then Health Sciences. specific destinations: HSL Learning comm/microlab (64%), Suzzallo Espresso (34%), Suzzallo Study areas (28%), Circulation (26%). 
• "Suzzallo Café is, in my opinion, a big success.  The café is often crowded...it has become an important meeting spot for TAs and theirstudents ."[6]
• 42% used library computer, only 21% used their own computer. however use of their own computer doubled since 2005 [5]
• top library activities: study individually 66% , used library computer 58% [5]
• top library priorities: access to online resources, place to work individually, library computers. (on-site collections, help,  group work rated as less important). [5] 
• "More electrical outlets in the Suzzallo reading room. I love that room - gorgeous!!!"[6]
• "More electrical outlets and open hours to 11pm on weekdays would be very appreciated."[6]
• 94% use the library online services [18]
• Some use the library to work, to use printers, or for entertainment and their own personal interest. Only a few (5%) reported seldom visiting the physical library [18]

Group Work

• still developing a scholarly network
• collaborate with each other, professors, non-uw grad students, etc
• work in groups (HSL)
• like sharing with other grads
• group work is common in Ischool & Bschool.  like group consultations

• Research groups are another key resource for graduate students. they bounce ideas off one another, compile shared libraries of papers, references, etc., and more experienced students provide advice on using the library [18]
• meeting with advisors or key professors is often a graduate students first step in the research process; their advisors will direct them to certain books or articles [18]
• although not fully developed, grad students are beginning to have a scholarly network and this influences their research goals, as they discuss topics and get ideas from peers [18] 
• 58% actually borrow books/articles from someone in the department [18]
• also discuss research interests informally with other students and get advice from them, meaning they have to spend less time combing through all available resources. varies by dept. (82% in business/policy vs. 62% in art/architecture) [18]

Demographics

• many ESL*
• returning students
• grad students returning to school after 10+, 20+ years, lack of confidence & more prone to "giving up" when confused on libraries website
• often been out of higher ed for some time
• have a disability (trouble using the library)
• male
• female
• not native - living here for school (HSL)
• young
• old

• while international students are more confident with both their English language skills and their library skills than they were ten years ago, they are still significantly less likely to have received undergraduate bibliographic instruction than American students. [22]
• students who have been out of the classroom for an extended time period are usually highly motivated, but they often have little experience searching in computer databases, and may feel more easily frustrated by the extensive range of search options available to them [22].
  
• Distance students are developing specialized learning cultures that include extensive use of group work and guided online discussions  In addition, their instructional sessions are more likely to be delivered via the web, 
• 21.6% were 25 or younger; 45.0% were 26-30; 20.3% were 31-35; and 13% were 36 or older [4]

More

• may plan to go into a profession other than academia
• "how do I publish an article?" (NIH policy)
• "How do I write a grant?"
• want lots of copies
• scared about the economy & getting a job after grad school (deer in headlights)
• stressed about losing TA/RA/GA job ( or already lost it)
• concerned with publication

• most common post-graduation plans for masters students were careers in business/industry (not including professional students) [5]
• most common post-graduation plans for doctoral students were post-doctoral fellowships [5]
• 60% of full time students were supported by the university (as of 2001, not including professional students) [13]
• Libraries ranked highly (4/5) as a major contributor to academic success, being a productive researcher, and finding information in new areas [1]
• While all graduate students indicated that they use some type of library resources, more than half of all graduate students (55%) and as many as 75% (arts and architecture) said that the university library plays an important role (e.g., crucial, invaluable, significant, and huge) in their research. This is consistent across disciplines with the exception of computer science students where only 21% describe the university library as important. [18]
• Class types depend on discipline, e.g.: Humanities -->small discussion, professional --> large discussion, natural science --> large lecture [4]