Survey: Non-English information seekers' information needs

Not a native speaker of English? Wanna help a fellow grad student (at Rutgers) by answering a quick survey? I'm sure this person would help you. ...

Dear Colleague:

The purpose of this message is to request information from you on a topic of concern to many in our field: access to information written in non-English languages. I am a doctoral student in library and information science at Rutgers University working on my dissertation. My doctoral committee includes Professors Dan O'Connor (Chair), Carol Kuhlthau, Tefko Saracevic, and, from OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), Dr. Lynn Silipigni Connaway. My dissertation includes two different methods, an experiment and a survey. This request deals with the questionnaire for the survey component of my study.

The purpose of my study is to explore non-English information seekers' ’information needs and study their information seeking behavior, especially users who use information in non-Roman alphabet languages, such as Chinese, Japanese or Korean. It also includes exploring if new features are needed to improve cross-language access to bibliographic records in
Databases and Online Public Access Catalogs for non-English information seekers. Additionally, it will attempt to determine the appropriateness of the bibliographic record.

In the questionnaire, you will be asked some questions about your
experiences using information retrieval systems. You will be also asked to
evaluate bibliographic records which are taken from online databases and
online library catalogs. There are no correct answers to this
questionnaire. The answers will merely reflect your assessments of the
bibliographic records. Completing the questionnaire should take
approximately 15 to 25 minutes.

The results of this survey will be reported anonymously. The information
will be kept confidential by limiting individual's access to the research
data and keeping it in a secure location. The researcher, her advisor, and
the Institutional Review Board at Rutgers University are the only parties
that will be allowed to see the data, except as may be required by law. If
a report of this study is published, or the results are presented at a
professional conference, only group results will be stated, unless you
have agreed otherwise.

Here is the link. You can contribute this link to anyone who might be
interested in this area.


http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ahGKqYvKRhsFbNLVdr9Cgw_3d_3d


If you would like any information regarding this study, please feel free
to contact YooJin Ha or Professor Dan O'Connor by e-mail or phone.

Sincerely,

YooJin Ha
Ph.D. Candidate
School of Communication Information and Library Studies
Rutgers University
4, Huntington Street, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, U.S.A.
yha@scils.rutgers.edu

Phone/email for Professor Dan O'Connor: 732-932-7500 x8219
oconnor@scils.rutgers.edu