William S. Brockman

PDFR98 | As the scholarly information environment changes, so do users' needs, expectations, and behaviors. Assessing and responding to those changes
is essential for the academic library so that it may continue in support of the scholarly mission. The authors of this report have formally examined how
humanities scholars conduct and collate their research. The study was based on a small sample of scholars; nonetheless, the results are powerfully suggestive
of ways in which academic libraries can adapt to and develop in a rapidly changing environment. In particular, the findings emphasize how important
it is for libraries to chart their evolutionary course in close consultation with scholarly user communities. The study shows that humanities scholars have adapted well to rapid technical change. It demonstrates how scholars can harness information technologies to tried, tested, and somewhat traditional research functions. Such functions include, for example, keeping abreast of a broad secondary literature that surrounds their fields of inquiry locating, acquiring access to, and using primary resources that are relevant to a particular area of investigation; and developing personal libraries that enrich and reinforce their scholarship. This finding may have profound implications for the academic library that feels its efforts to adapt to new technologies are sometimes constrained by faculty who appear to resist change. Working with research faculty, libraries have an opportunity to learn how better to support scholarship with new technologies while encouraging scholarly adoption and use of those technologies |

• How do humanities scholars think about, organize, and perform their research?

• How are information sources used throughout the research process?

• How do electronic information sources affect work practices?

In addition, we were interested in two specific questions related to research library collections and services:

• What functions and characteristics make one resource better than another?

• How can the traditional role of the library as a repository for printed works be reconciled with the provision of virtual, unlocated resources? | Qualitative Methods | Semi-Structured Interviews | Case Study of Five Scholars |

1. project-based semi-structured interviews
2. selected case studies
a. search session observation
b. document analysis and interview
c. workspace observation
3. follow-up semi-structured interviews

This research was based on the premise that digital and hybrid libraries can improve their collections, systems, and services by learning more about the information environments of their most dedicated users. | http://www.clir.org |

Contents
Preface ............................... vi
Acknowledgments................... viii
Introduction .............................1
Present State of Knowledge on Information Use in the Humanities ..............2
Project Approach ......................4
Project Findings ........................6
Ways of Reading .......................7
Chaining to Enable Reading .....9
Collaborative Networking ......... 11
Researching and Searching .......13
Collections as Capital .................13
Many States of Primary Materials ........15
Multitude of Sources .............17
Access Tools for Speed and Scope .............19
Diverse Skills and Strategies .............20
Generic Searching Problems .............22
Browsing across Collections and Tools ..........23
Ways of Writing .............24
Information Management, Accretion, and Refinement .........24
Oscillating and Overlapping Synthesis Work ................26
Trends: The Evolving Information Environment for Humanists ......28
Conclusion .............31
References .............33
Appendix: Methods ............36
-- Fig. 1 Document-Analysis Table

SA - Library Changes
RT - Hybrid
BT - Digital Humanities
NT - Library Service Approaches
UF - Updating Ideas About Service Models
SN - This study documents, through a small sample, the desired approaches toward digital resources. (This entry does not reference a hierarchical list)… (mer)