JISC

As part of an ongoing discussion with readers on how research is changing and their expectations of the future role of libraries, the British Library has released initial findings from the first interim evaluation report of its exhibition Growing Knowledge, the Evolution of Research.

Part of a broader evaluation study funded by JISC, initial findings developed by UCL’s Ciber Research Group show that visitors to Growing Knowledge are not only interested in the initiative but also impressed that the library is attempting to learn from and meet the needs of its researchers.

Charles Hutchings, market research manager at JISC, said: “As we’re discovering in our Researchers of Tomorrow study, younger researchers only use new tools and applications in their work once they see their immediate utility. So what’s really interesting is how the Growing Knowledge exhibition is encouraging researchers of all ages to try out new technologies. It’s important that JISC and the BL continue to demonstrate the potential value of these technologies for researchers.”

Specifically, visitors to the exhibition are impressed by the resources and tools on show and their usefulness to the research process.  Findings show that visitors are rating the applications on show as ‘very useful’ or ‘possibly useful’.  For example, 68% of visitors surveyed found the UK Web Archive very or possibly useful, whilst 50% found one of the most popular tools, Mendeley very or possibly useful.

Mendeley caught the attention of many visitors to the interactive research pod content of the exhibition and was highly rated.  Mendeley was praised for meeting the many and complex requirements of researchers such as: organising disparate papers; providing an Amazon-style facility whereby users can see what others with similar research interests are doing; synchronising itself with other reference management software; including a web archive system and generating bibliographies and indexes from papers being written.

The research also shows that the exhibition has shifted perceptions and provided researchers with food for thought in terms of tools and applications they might not previously have considered.  Examining some of the key applications such as visualisation tools and audio search, 58% and 63% of visitors surveyed stated that they are not using these features currently but may do so in the future.

Aleks Krotoski, Growing Knowledge researcher in residence, commented on these findings: “What’s interesting is that Growing Knowledge has already started to seed interest amongst non-Library users.  The aim all along was to test the water with the research community and these early findings show that perceptions of digital research tools are slowly starting to change, both within the sector and beyond.”

Growing Knowledge has also attracted a diverse audience.  Interestingly, over half of the visitors to the exhibition have been over 40, suggesting that digital technology and research is not only the province of the young.  Further, the exhibition has reached a large percentage of visitors who are not registered library readers.  69.4% of all visitors do not hold a library readers pass therefore demonstrating the appeal of the exhibition to a broad range of visitors.

Richard Boulderstone, the British Library’s director of e-Strategy and Information Systems said: “Growing Knowledge was developed to allow visitors to interrogate, both physically and online some of the tools that are making waves today and will capture the researcher’s imagination in the future.  Whilst these results are tentative, the Library is using this interim report to examine the findings, positive and negative, so that we start to determine some of the patterns that exist in understanding how researchers will use these tools and spaces in the future.”

Interact with the exhibition online