Organizational dimensions of effective digital library use: Closed rational and open natural systems models

Behind the expectations that Digital Libraries (DLs) will provide access to any document at any time to anyone in any place are questions about whether digital collection, storage, and transmission are useful to people who depend upon library materials. This study focuses on DL use within the context of research activities in Ph.D.-granting institutions. We examine what constitutes effective DL use, how faculty members are using DLs, and how useful they find them. We conducted our study in faculty workplaces: The laboratories and offices where they conduct scholarly research. Our focus is on the human activity systems that unite readers, authors, librarians and researchers with electronic materials, resource streams, computer equipment and know-how. We examine practices involving three clusters of informants: Faculty researchers who produce and make use of scholarly materials, librarians who facilitate access to digital and nondigital collections, and computer support providers who manage the arrangements of electronic resources. Our study, which included two research universities in two disciplines (molecular biology and literary theory), provides a theoretical model for understanding DL use in different social worlds, and suggests preliminary DL use patterns to pursue in a follow-on study. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.