An Exploratory Study of the Perceptions of Library Faculty and Patrons on Library Resources

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-2020

Publication Title

Journal of Information Systems Applied Research

ISSN

1946-1836

Abstract

Traditionally, a library has been defined by four aspects: its collection of books, the building that houses them, the librarians who are experts in retrieving this stored and cataloged information, and the patrons who are the end users of library services. With the growth of digital content, circulation of print material is in decline, and gate counters are showing a trend of decreased traffic. To address these issues academic and public libraries are trying to reinvent themselves both in physical and digital offerings. For example, libraries have added computer labs and teaching spaces, and they are expanding into mobile development, cloud sourcing, semantic library web, and online education. Unfortunately, these changes do not guarantee patrons will use library services. This study seeks to investigate the differences in librarian and patron perspectives on the physical and digital resources of the library. 2x2 factorial design was used on six constructs: system quality, information quality, context quality, user satisfaction, perceived benefit, and intent to use. The results showed that both librarians and patrons felt the utilization of the library building was the best overall indicator of the quality of a library. In addition, both groups felt closing a library would have a detrimental impact on the community. One interesting result that was the patrons indicated they viewed the storing of books as the most important service while the librarians favored buying access to online resources and technology. This suggests more research is necessary as organizations plan for future library uses and resource expenditures.

Copyright

© Published by ISCAP, Information Systems and Computing Academic Professionals, North Carolina, USA

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