An Exploratory Study of Academic Library Users' Decision-Making Process

The paper reported results from a user survey study conducted in an academic library setting that aimed at investigating readers’ borrowing decision making process. The research is motivated by adaptive decision making theory and Len’s Model in cognitive psychology. Specifically, the research sets out the explore readers’ reliance on various information sources when facing different search situations. The results show that readers adaptively make use of information sources in their immediate information environment and those in the library setting to learn about and judge the value of a title. It is hoped that the results will lend support to the provision of richer bibliographic information and connectivity among works to facilitate user judgment and browse-based access to library collection. The theoretical implications of the study on the development of human information seeking are also discussed.