In October 1997, the Sterling Memorial Library and the Information Technology Services (ITS) began providing 24 network docking stations (12 dial-up ports and 12 Ethernet ports) located in the lamps on two reading tables in the recently renovated Starr Main Reference Room. This one- year pilot program is designed to enable readers to connect to the Yale Campus Network and the Internet from their laptop computers.
This SCOPA project is designed to assess the impact of readers' use of their laptops to connect to this improved network access. Specifically, we are interested in determining what impact this access has on our readers' research, study habits, library use, etc.
This assessment of the Improved Network Access Program might be helpful in determining the usefulness of providing additional technology to readers to assist them with their research and studying and in making them independent users of the resources available at Yale and world-wide via the WWW.
We will use several methods to evaluate the program. Initially, we will approach the laptop users and ask them to complete a brief survey containing questions about their background (i.e. demographics) and about the reasons for their laptop use (i.e., for internet connections, searching ORBIS, searching databases, e-mail, word processing, etc.). There will also be a separate sheet of paper for the readers to write their addresses and telephone numbers so that they may be contacted in the future for a follow-up focus group to explore some of these issues more in-depth.
We will distribute the short survey during the Fall 1997 term. We will conduct the follow-up focus groups during the Spring 1998 term and conclude by the end of the semester. We will begin to analyses of the data during the Summer 1998 term and conclude the data analyses during the Fall 1998 term.
Tape recorder for the focus groups = approximately $100
Transcriptions - Three 1 hour focus groups require 3 hours of transcription/ per focus group - transcriber is $15/hr x 3 hrs to transcribe 3 focus groups = 9 hrs x $15 = $135
HyperRESEARCH Qualitative Software package for content analyses of focus groups = $225
Recorder $100 Transcriptions $135 HyperRESEARCH $225 Total $460