Users Of Online Services Research Articles

European online users: a mid‐1981 report

A survey was made in the Spring/Summer of 1981 by Online Review of users of online services in Europe. Questionnaires were sent out to some 7,000 individuals. Replies were requested, and only accepted, on an organisation basis; some 497 organisations in Europe were represented in the analysis. Questions were asked to establish the nature, size and areas of interest of the respondent organisations, to establish equipment used and services used, to provide indications of the future plans of online users and to establish a profile of the typical terminal user. When analysed, it was ascertained that the users surveyed had been the users of the major international, bibliographic online services.

ONLINE USER TRAINING

The provision of computerized bibliographic retrieval service is available at numerous libraries and information centers within the United States and in many countries throughout the world. This service requires specialized training for the users and the providers of the service. The training team is comprised of the database producer, the database vendor, the search analyst, and the end-user. This paper describes the team approach in training users in the usage of online services at a land grant academic institution.

TRAINING OF USERS OF ONLINE SERVICES

A survey of the literature on the training of users of online services is presented, covering the period 1976 through 1979. Sections of the search deal with the general problem, the promotion of online services, the education of professional intermediaries, and the training of end-users, followed by a consideration of future trends.

Background characteristics of industrial and academic users and nonusers of online bibliographic search services

Mediated free online bibliographic search services were offered to 70 academic chemists and 262 industrial scientists and technologists. Consistent with earlier studies of users and nonusers of computer‐readable bibliographic databases, generally negligible differences were found. Nor were the correlates of use in an industrial setting generally replicated in an academic setting. However, prior information ‘style’, satisfaction with more traditional information resources, and attitudinal predisposition to the possible utility of online search services have some small effect on subsequent usage of online services.