In the UK, both anecdotal and research evidence points to ever greater and more sophisticated use of the Web to provide health information and advice. The study reported here adds to this research with an online survey of Internet users’ reported use of the Web to access information about...

Purpose – This JISC funded UK National E‐Books Observatory study is a benchmarking survey of e‐book usage and perceptions in more than 120 participating universities. The paper aims to present the results that investigated: use of e‐books in general (methods of obtaining e‐books,...

Presents research that was designed to explore the early take‐up of a pilot digital interactive television (DiTV) health information service (Living Health) by cable television subscribers in Birmingham, UK. Log data indicated real‐time viewing behaviour of subscribers to the cable network...

Provides the first exploratory analysis of the use of NHS touch‐screen information kiosks located throughout the UK. It examines, through a one month snapshot of the transactional logs of the kiosks, their use and makes comparisons between the types of organisation in which the kiosks are...

NHS Direct Digital was available to almost exactly the same number of users in both Hull and London via two different transmission DiTV companies: Kingston Interactive Television (KIT) and HomeChoice. This paper employs metrics based on server generated logs to compare use and user differences...

Reports on a qualitative study exploring a highly innovative digital TV pilot service. Focus groups of medical and health information professionals, “condition‐specific” subjects and “general interest” volunteers were recruited to obtain views about the videos generally, in terms of...

Identifies Internet health user types according to three factors: site attributes most favoured, health topics most sought, and the health sites they visited. Knowing what type of consumer uses a site is important, as this should inform menu structure and provide an understanding of why certain...

Purpose – The study aims to examines two aspects of information seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers including methods applied for keeping up‐to‐date and methods used for finding articles. The relationship between academic status and research field of users with their...

Three questions – what can be studied; how can studies be done; and what can be measured – drive research methods and help to identify information metrics for user studies. User studies can investigate user needs, search strategies, or preferences. Observing and asking, the two main methods for...

Purpose – By tracking the information‐seeking and reading patterns of science, technology, medical and social science faculty members from 1977 to the present, this paper seeks to examine how faculty members locate, obtain, read, and use scholarly articles and how this has changed with the...