THE USER PERSPECTIVE OF THE ELINOR ELECTRONIC LIBRARY

The electronic library is emerging as the library of the foreseeable future but its user aspect, particularly the usability, requires more research. This article describes the ELINOR (Electronic Library and Information Online Retrieval) developments at De Montfort University from the user's perspective. It firstly shows the main features of the ELINOR user interface which illustrates how a user can find a document in the Electronic Library and subsequently read the retrieved document on the screen. This is then followed by a discussion of the methodology and findings of a user study based on a random sample of eight ELINOR users conducted in the Autumn term of 1993. The user study included searching/reading/browsing tasks and a questionnaire. The former is a controlled experiment designed to gauge objectively the usability of ELINOR by comparing the use of the electronic books with that of printed books. The questionnaire shows the user's subjective reaction to ELINOR. Future work on the user study will expand the sample to include all the first- and second-year students doing the Business Information Systems Course at the University 's Milton Keynes campus.