A recent case study analyzes the use of the Finnish National Electronic Library (FinELib). Specifically, the study looks at how academic status and discipline influence the search strategies used by university academic staff.

The main conclusion of the study is that patterns of searching for journal articles are changing because of increasing access to digital information resources. In particular, the role of colleagues is diminishing.

The study was done by Pertti Vakkari and Sanna Talja at the Department of Information Studies at the University of Tampere in Finland. They studied how academic staff proceed when they are looking for electronic articles for teaching, research and keeping up to date in their field.

The material analyzed is the result of a nationwide web survey of the users of FinELib, The Finnish National Electronic Library. The survey had 900 respondents.

Vakkari and Talja found that in all disciplines, keyword searching in journal- and reference databases were the most important methods, compared to browsing or obtaining material from colleagues.

The strategies varied in the different academic disciplines. Keyword searching in databases was more common in natural sciences, engineering and medicine than in other disciplines. Browsing, and conferring with colleagues as sources of access was significantly more common in humanities than in other disciplines.

Pertti Vakkari and Sanna Talja: “Searching for electronic journal articles to support academic tasks. A case study of the use of the Finnish National Electronic Library (FinELib)” in Information Research, Vol. 12 No. 1, October 2006.