Fu, Yaming;
(2021)
Experiencing the academic library in the Digital Age: From information seeking and user experience to human information interaction.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
The Digital Age, marked by the prevalent usage of digital technologies and explosion of digital information, has changed the way we communicate and interact with information, and prompts us to think about how it is influencing and transforming user experience with and within academic libraries. For academic libraries whilst their relationships with users may have shifted so too have their audiences. Internationalisation in higher education (HE) institutions has brought greater student diversity and requirements that should be understood to improve student experience and satisfaction. At the heart of HE, academic libraries serve a significant role in students’ learning and researching and their experience in the academic library constitutes an essential part of the learning experience. Within an interpretive paradigm, this thesis explores how international Chinese students experience the UK academic library in the Digital Age. Mixed methods research was conducted with a largely qualitative stance to explore the complexity of library user experience and to investigate library service delivery in order to enhance the future library user experience design. Library log analysis investigated what students do in the academic library through looking into their information seeking behaviour; cognitive mapping and semi-structured interviews were used to examine how students think and feel about the academic library by probing into their user experience. Demonstrating the complexity and multi-layered characteristics of context, this thesis proposed separating contexts to analyse and understand students’ library experience in distinct contexts. The findings developed an original framework theory of ‘context-perception-sense-making’ to depict a holistic picture of students’ library experience, identifying two vital elements, context and perception, which trigger, shape and alter students’ library experience. This thesis brings together the essential components of information seeking behaviour and user experience into the context of the academic library and defines students’ relationships with and within the library in new ways.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Experiencing the academic library in the Digital Age: From information seeking and user experience to human information interaction |
| Event: | UCL (University College London) |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2021. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| Keywords: | Library and information studies, Human experience, Information seeking behaviour |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10121827 |
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