2016 Charleston Library Conference

The last decade has seen rapid growth in the amount of information available online. For the academic community, this explosion of content has significantly changed the way students and researchers alike find and use information. Having access to digital information - and understanding how best to use that information - is particularly crucial to postgraduate students starting new research projects.

In order to better understand how students use information in their research, Loughborough University and Taylor & Francis Group undertook a joint project to capture the PhD research student's User Experience (UX). Over the course of 12 months, 10 research students from Loughborough University kept diaries and attended focus groups where their views, experiences, and approaches to using information were captured. Their experience with scholarly communication was a significant focus of these activities, along with evaluating different publisher platforms and reflecting on how Open Access and social media channels could be used to meet their research needs.

During this session, Graham Walton, Assistant Director for Academic and User Services at Loughborough University Library, and Stacy Stanislaw, Library Communications Manager at Taylor & Francis Group, will provide an overview of this collaborative project, discussing the idea that academic libraries and publishers can help improve the researcher experience in discovering and navigating online content. The session will also look at the process behind and results of this project, along with lessons learned and insights gathered into the real User eXperience. Finally, the presentation will include time for questions and feedback from the audience on the project.