Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Berlin School of Library and Information Science

User Studies

"Storing and calling up information of all kinds is being changed significantly. Libraries are no longer the only window to the world of wisdom. This simple fact is, what forces them to use new digital possibilities. They have to provide new services and to modernize the existing ones for the benefit of their users. Sometimes, the libraries are several steps ahead of the users, sometimes it is the other way around. Regular surveys on the users wishes and satisfactions are therefore unavoidable. The library science-sector is required to analyse changings in user behaviour. 

To make those analyses possible and to deal with this topic not only theoretically, students of the Berlin School of Library and Information Science suggested a survey project for an advanced seminar in summer 2004. In winter 2004/5, this suvey has been developed and tested. 

The first surveys in German-speaking libraries took place in spring in summer 2005. The project is being continued with other libraries. The participating libraries agreed to repeat the survey in reasonable intervals."

(taken from the description of the project homepage)