The Million Book Project:
Removing Obstacles to Use, Satisfaction, & Success
Denise Troll Covey
Principal Librarian for Special Projects – Carnegie Mellon
LIDA 2004 – Dubrovnik, Croatia
Overview
• Library users & use in the digital age
– Results of national & international surveys
– Results of
research
– Barriers to use, satisfaction, & success
• Million Book Project response
What Academic Users Want
• Personal control & ubiquitous access
to comprehensive information
– 90% want convenient, speedy, easy access
• Only thing they want more is quality information
– 61% prefer remote access to full text
• Express unmet need for electronic resources
twice as often as for print resources
– 31% don’t want to go
to the physical library
What Academic Libraries Provide
Need for personal control
& convenient, speedy, easy
50% to 90% access to information
students & faculty
perceive a gap
between
LibQual+ Survey
2002 & 2003
Service provided by the library
– 24% often can’t get
information when needed
Priority Problems
1. Enough time
2. Knowing what library resources are available
3. Accessing & using online library resources
–
Difficulty navigating & searching library web sites
–
Issues with the design, functionality, & access
restrictions of licensed online library resources
–
Problems with proxy servers & VPN
35% failure rate accomplishing tasks on web sites
What Academic Users Are Doing
• Students & faculty trust library more than Internet
• 35% use library less now than two years ago
– 86% library meets most
of their information needs
– 80% Internet has changed
their use of the library
• 73% of students use the Internet
more than the library
Students & Faculty
• Use Internet search engines because
they are easier,
faster, & more convenient than using a library or other web site
– 48% start with Internet search engine (54% ugrads)
– 33% start with library web site (28% ugrads)
• 33% do not get most of the information
they need from their physical or digital library
• 54% access library resources
remotely (68% ugrads)
Information Seeking in the Library
100%
75%
50%
25%
0%
% of information
seeking time spent
in physical library
Faculty
Graduate
students
Undergraduate
students
Undergraduate Student Behaviors
• 48% use online resources
all or most of the time
• 80% use the library fewer than 3 hours per week
• 40% use Internet for every assignment
• 11% use library web site for every assignment
• Efficiency is more important than relevance
Undergraduate Student Behaviors
• 69% live off campus
• 59% use home computer > school computers
• 90% access the web from their home computer
• 80% use the library for web access,
but only 20% prefer this access point
• 80% prefer remote access
Undergraduate Student Beliefs
• 96% information found on the surface web
is adequate for class assignments
– 11% don’t care about the authority of information
• 46% other web sites
have better information
than the library web site
What Users Want
• Personal control & access to information
– Remote access to full text
– More & easier to use online resources
• Way to identify appropriate resources
& to get updates on available resources
Ease
Speed
Convenience
– More books, including out of print books
– More back issues of journals
– Customizable user interface
• More comfortable library facilities
Provide
• Small collection
• Web site & portal
• VPN & Shibboleth
1,000,000 printed books
185 databases
18,000 electronic books
13,000 electronic journals
• Automated Resource Finder & SFX
• Online reserves, reference, renewal, holds,
ILL, direct borrowing from other libraries
• Self check out
Priority Problems
• Enough time
• Personal control & access to information
– Barely meeting needs of graduate students
– Not meeting desires of undergraduate students
– Problems accessing & using online library resources
• Library catalog & databases are not easy to use
• Difficulty navigating the library web site
• Difficulty picking appropriate resources & keeping up to date
• Physical library & ILL are inconvenient
What Users Are Doing
1250000
Database searches
1000000
750000
Catalog searches
500000
Full text retrieval
250000
Circulation
0
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
What Users Are Doing
1000000
Virtual visits
2000000
Printing
750000
1500000
500000
1000000
Physical visits
250000
500000
0
0
2000 2001 2002 2003
Photocopying
2000 2001 2002 2003
What Users Are Doing
Reserves
Reference
200000
2000
150000
1500
100000
1000
50000
500
0
0
2001
2002
2003
Digital
2001
2002
Traditional
2003
Graduate Students
• Most important factors in determining search tool
– 93% Quality of info
– 46% Speed
– 67% Convenience
– 41% Ease of use
• Seeking & obtaining information
– 1st Internet search engine
– 2nd Library web site
– 3rd Human resource
– 4th Physical library
Graduate Students
• 82% use Internet search engine most of the time
• Most of the time they can get what they need
from the library, but . . .
Web
Library
Other
Graduate Students
• Using the web is twice as easy & convenient
as using online library resources
• Using online library resources is about as easy
& convenient as turning to a human resource
• Small collection limits selection of research topics
& quality of work
Barrier #1: Time
• Time is a limited resource
• Use what’s expedient
– Easy, speedy, convenient
• Prefer convenience
of remote access to full text
Barrier #2: Discovery, Access & Use
• Library web sites & online resources
are not easy to discover, access & use
• They take more time & are less convenient
than Internet search engines
• So students & faculty often use
Internet search engines
Academic Impact
• Lack of convenient, speedy, easy
remote discovery & open access
to quality, easy to use resources
on the surface web is affecting
the timeliness & success
of research & learning
What’s Needed?
• Quality full text resources on the surface web
• Easy, speedy, convenient, remote
discovery,
open access,
navigation
& use
Response: Million Book Project
• Digitize & provide open access to a million books
• Vision, leadership, & research – Carnegie Mellon
• $$ Equipment & travel – NSF
• $$ Labor & research – India & China
• Other partners: OCLC & Internet Archive
• Following standards & laws
• Commitment to sustain
Academic Significance
• Convenient, speedy, easy, remote
discovery, open access, navigation & use
of quality full text resources on the surface web
– Project web site
– Links in library catalogs
– Links in WorldCat
– Eventually Google search
– Eventually OAI MHP
Social Significance
• Address disparity in library size & accessibility
• Democratize & facilitate new knowledge
• Support digital library research
• Preserve intellectual & cultural heritage
“Attempt to understand & solve
the technical, economic, & social policy
issues of providing online access
to all creative works of the human race.”
Raj Reddy
Michael Shamos
Gloriana St. Clair
Collection of Collections
• What librarians select & partners want
– Books for College Libraries
– Government documents
– Cultural artifacts
– Technical reports
• What we can acquire – bulk, cheap, fast
Indigenous India & China
Public Domain
In Copyright
Most will be older,
out of print materials
Metadata
• Librarians capture metadata
– Bibliographic: MARC or DC
– Administrative: copyright permission & source library
– OCLC digital registry
• Intent to preserve
& make accessible in entirety
• Compliance with standards
& best practices
• Professionally managed
• Public use copy available
Digitization
• Operators scan & post process
– Above average wages
– 4000 books per year per scanner (two shifts per day)
– 400,000 books per year with 100 scanners
• Goal is 100 centers
scanning 500,000
pages per day
Issues & Next Steps
• Updating workflow & processing the backlog
• Coordinating acquisition & shipping
• Integrating & mirroring the collection
• Acquiring copyright permission
• Adding print on demand
• Improving the interface
Next & previous
page
Zoom
in & out
Select
format
Go to page
Search within the book
Current
book display
& navigation
Title of book
Next & previous page
Go to page
New search for other books
Return to
results
Select
format
Help
Zoom
in & out
Add or
remove
bookmark
Search within
the book
Location within book
Add to
or view
bookbag
Get info about
the book
Beginning
& end of book
Proposed
book display
& navigation
Million Book Project Web Sites
China: http://www.ulib.org.cn/
India: http://www.dli.gov.in/home.htm
U.S.: http://www.ulib.org/html/index.html
FAQ: http://www.library.cmu.edu/Libraries/MBP_FAQ.html
Use Internet Explorer
Thank you!
Scanning center in Beijing
Denise Troll Covey – troll@andrew.cmu.edu