ERIC Number: ED245689
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1984
Pages: 65
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Federal Documents Use in the Research Library Setting.
Watson, Paula; Heim, Kathleen
Intended to be a comprehensive analysis of the use of government documents at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), this project was designed in particular to ascertain to what degree provision of full bibliographic control at UIUC facilitates documents use. A point-of-exit questionnaire was used to determine user status, department, how the document to be circulated was identified, and reasons for use. Due to the recent segregation of documents, the study was conducted on a small subset of UIUC's entire documents collection. An additional limitation involved the reliability of personnel administering the questionnaire. Analysis of the 150 usable responses received indicated that the majority of users were undergraduates; Congressional documents accounted for the greatest use; most undergraduate use of documents was related to coursework; and the provision of full bibliographic control for documents at UIUC had an observable impact on the sharing of documents resources. The study provided data for future research on the impact of the introduction of an online public catalog on documents use and patterns of access. A copy of the questionnaire is included in the appendices. (DMC)
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Tests/Questionnaires
Education Level: N/A
Audience: Policymakers
Language: English
Sponsor: Council on Library Resources, Inc., Washington, DC.
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A