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Investigating barriers to “using information” in electronic resources: A study with e‐book users
Author(s) -
Potnis Devendra,
Deosthali Kanchan,
Pino Janine
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
proceedings of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.193
H-Index - 14
ISSN - 2373-9231
DOI - 10.1002/pra2.2017.14505401035
Subject(s) - respondent , affect (linguistics) , cognition , psychology , process (computing) , resource (disambiguation) , grounded theory , information seeking , social psychology , qualitative research , public relations , knowledge management , sociology , computer science , library science , political science , social science , computer network , communication , neuroscience , law , operating system
Students' ability to use information plays a key role in influencing their adoption and continued usage of e‐books. This pilot study investigates the barriers to using (i.e., searching, managing, processing and applying) information in e‐books experienced by 25 library and information science graduate students (LISGS) at a land‐grant university in the United States. The analysis of study participants' in‐depth qualitative responses using grounded theory principles reveals 60 barriers that affect their ability to use information. These barriers are related to (a) e‐readers, (b) features of e‐books, (c) psychological, somatic, and cognitive status of the respondents, (d) cost and (e) policies. We present the adverse effects of these barriers on the respondents' ability to search, manage, process and apply information in e‐books. For instance, the psychological, somatic and cognitive statuses of respondents affect their ability to process information the most. Barriers related to e‐readers and e‐books have collectively the most damaging effect on the respondent's ability to search, manage, process and apply information. Due to a series of unavoidable barriers, respondents who originally intend to use e‐books for utilitarian purposes end up using this electronic resource mostly for hedonistic reasons. Implications are discussed at the end.