Submitted by Jean Gudenas
Health Sciences Library, Loyola University, Chicago, IL
The outcome of my survey was to better understand the digital content needs of the Loyola University medical community. By identifying patron satisfaction with electronic books and recognizing the differences between electronic resources, I hypothesized that the library could help patrons do their work more efficiently and effectively.
Note that I specifically state "the outcome of my survey." Initially, this project began with an observation: I saw that many of our medical patrons were not concerned with (or were oblivious to) semantic differences in similar medical terminology. For example, although the meaning of information versus the meaning of knowledge is a continually discussed topic in academia, I have not met many medical students who would want to participate in that conversation.
If I define information as "meaning conveyed to an intended receiver (assuming that the purpose of a word is to convey meaning)," what meaning any word conveys depends upon the semantics that are associated with it and the environment that the word is used in. Basically, words assume different roles, which convey different meanings depending on the context and environment. This implies that words inherit meaning from their environment and if the environment of use changes, then the word meaning may also change.
Obviously, an electronic environment is much different than a physical environment. However, medical terminology doesn't necessarily distinguish between environments and I was curious if our patrons had any difficulties searching in an electronic environment
I informally met with some medical students and doctors and asked general questions about Loyola's electronic resources. I unexpectedly found that many of the students did not know there was a difference between electronic books and electronic journals. Subsequently, many only searched in databases that primarily consisted of e-journals.
After examining literature published about e-book concepts, surveys and collection development, I created a survey for the Loyola medical community. My hope was that the statistics could be analyzed and applied as a model for future e-book development. The conference poster replicated the responses from that survey and reinforced my observation that many of the surveyed patrons either did not know the difference between e-books and e-journals or that there were e-books available.
Currently, I am proposing a plan to promote Loyola's e-book resources more prominently on the health sciences website. I believe that promoting the electronic books will visually remind our patrons of the collection and that e-books can be separate from e-journals. Afterwards, I would like to re-survey Loyola patrons and compare the results in a future poster session to see if promoting made a difference.