2 results
1 - The digital consumer: an introduction and philosophy
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- By David Nicholas, David is the Director of UCL SLAIS. He is also the Director of the UCL Centre for Publishing and a Director of the CIBER research group. He is a member of the British Library Research Board and editor of Aslib Proceedings., Ian Rowlands, Ian is Reader in Publishing at UCL SLAIS and an active member of the UCL Centre for Publishing and CIBER., Richard Withey, Richard has recently stepped down as global director of interactive media for Independent News & Media PLC (INM), a position held since May 2002., Tom Dobrowolski, Tom is a senior lecturer and Head of Postgraduate Studies at the Institute of Information Science and Book Studies, Warsaw University, the largest Information School in Poland.
- Edited by David Nicholas, Ian Rowlands
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- Book:
- Digital Consumers
- Published by:
- Facet
- Published online:
- 08 June 2018
- Print publication:
- 23 August 2008, pp 1-12
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
We have chosen the title of this book with care, adopting the more general ‘digital consumer’ rather than the more specific ‘digital information consumer’ descriptor in recognition of the fact that, although the book focuses on the behaviour of people visiting the virtual space for information, the internet has redefined and widened the information domain. Because the internet is an encyclopedic, multi-purpose platform that people use, rather like a superstore, to obtain a whole range of things (often at the same time), it is now almost impossible to say what information is and what it is not, what is information seeking and what is not. Being a digital consumer does not simply mean choosing or buying e-documents or information services. Information is also fundamental to the process and success of e-shopping. As Chris Russell in Chapter 3 explains, first a person is a digital information consumer and then an e-buyer. Thus people shopping at the John Lewis e-store will be using the internal search engine to find what they want, navigating through the site employing browsing menus and opening another window on a cross-comparison site to make sure they are getting value for money. It is not surprising therefore that looking for information is one of the two most common web activities – the other is e-mail; the digital consumer is essentially an information consumer. There is another reason for employing the more general form of the descriptor and it is because information seeking is not conducted in a vacuum and many factors shape it. Therefore it is important that it is embedded in a wider world of epublishing, e-shopping and communication theory.
Why this book now?
Because this book is a first, it fills a yawning gap in our professional knowledge and shows us how we can overcome an insularity that is plainly an obstacle to professional development. Amazingly, despite the fact that we are ten years into an information consumer revolution occasioned by the arrival of the internet, which is changing society, education and commerce on a massive and global scale, this is the first time, as far as we can discover, that information or digital consumers have figured in a book title issued by a publisher providing books for the information professions.
6 - The information-seeking behaviour of the digital consumer: case study – the virtual scholar
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- By David Nicholas, David is the Director of UCL SLAIS. He is also the Director of the UCL Centre for Publishing and a Director of the CIBER research group. He is a member of the British Library Research Board and editor of Aslib Proceedings., Paul Huntington, Paul is a senior research fellow with CIBER at UCL. His main field of expertise is the analysis of server transactional log files., Hamid R. Jamali, Hamid is an Iranian who is a researcher at UCL SLAIS and is a member of the UCL Centre for Publishing and CIBER., Tom Dobrowolski, Tom is a senior lecturer and Head of Postgraduate Studies at the Institute of Information Science and Book Studies, Warsaw University, the largest Information School in Poland.
- Edited by David Nicholas, Ian Rowlands
-
- Book:
- Digital Consumers
- Published by:
- Facet
- Published online:
- 08 June 2018
- Print publication:
- 23 August 2008, pp 113-158
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Summary
This is a lynchpin chapter in that preceding chapters have provided the essential context for it and the following ones feed off it, and its relative significance is reflected by the greater space devoted to it. The massive exodus of the information user from the physical space to the virtual space and the opening up of information resources to millions of people who once had poor access to information resources requires us all to reflect on what this really means in information-seeking terms. This chapter enables this reflection by profiling and evaluating the information-seeking behaviour of the digital information consumer. This is largely undertaken by visiting the huge evidence base that the CIBER research group have amassed over the years during the Virtual Scholar research programme (2001–8), the biggest of its kind ever conducted. The evidence base is formed from the millions of digital footprints that people leave behind them after a visit to a digital resource. Using deep log analysis techniques, sense has been made of these data and they are stitched together to create information-seeking portraits for a wide range of scholarly communities, including staff, students and researchers. Via these portraits, user satisfaction and scholarly outcomes are investigated.
It has to be said that the characteristics of the information-seeking behaviour once uncovered come as something of a revelation, and are very different to what might have been expected from reading the established literature on information seeking. The behaviour resembles more that of an e-shopper confronted by the cornucopia of shopping opportunities offered by the web. It is frenetic, promiscuous, volatile and viewing in nature, and, as such, requires us all to radically rethink information provision and delivery to the digital information consumer.
Background
The internet has moved into all corners of our life, online searching has become a daily activity for millions and millions of people. A fundamental shift in the information domain has occurred: science and the public sector are no longer the biggest markets for online services. In recognition of this CIBER (www.ucl.ac.uk/slais/research/ciber/) has spent the past seven years evaluating the information-seeking behaviour of a number of emergent, strategic digital information com munities, most notably those associated with news (Nicholas et al., 2000), health (Nicholas, Huntington, Jamali and Williams, 2007), voluntary and charitable work (Nicholas, Williams and Dennis, 2004) and scholarly publishing.
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