Cliff McKnight

Electronic books: Children’s reading and comprehension

This study investigates the differences in children’s comprehension and enjoyment of storybooks according to the medium of presentation. Two different storybooks were used and 132 children participated. Of these, 51 children read an extract from The Magicians of Caprona, about half reading an electronic version with an online dictionary, and the rest reading a printed version with a separate printed dictionary. The remaining 81 children read an extract from The Little Prince, 26 reading an electronic version, 26 reading the same but with narration and 29 reading a printed version. No dictionary was supplied with this storybook. The type of medium did not significantly affect the children’s enjoyment of either storybook, and while it took them longer to read the electronic versions, this difference was only significant for The Little Prince. For both storybooks, comprehension scores were higher for retrieval-type questions than for inference ones. The use of the online dictionary in the electronic condition of The Magicians of Caprona was significantly greater than that for the printed dictionary in that condition. The provision of narration in the electronic version of The Little Prince led to significantly higher comprehension scores than when narration was absent.

The evaluation of WWW search engines

The literature of the evaluation of Internet search engines is reviewed. Although there have been many studies, there has been little consistency in the way such studies have been carried out. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that recall is virtually impossible to calculate in the fast changing Internet environment, and therefore the traditional Cranfield type of evaluation is not usually possible. A variety of alternative evaluation methods has been suggested to overcome this difficulty. The authors recommend that a standardised set of tools is developed for the evaluation of web search engines so that, in future, comparisons can be made between search engines more effectively, and that variations in performance of any given search engine over time can be tracked. The paper itself does not provide such a standard set of tools, but it investigates the issues and makes preliminary recommendations of the types of tools needed.

Reading from paper versus reading from screen

This paper reviews the literature on reading continuous text from VDUs. The focus is on the reported nature, and potential causes, of reading differences between paper and screens. The first section outlines the scope of the present review. Section 2 discusses the nature of the reported differences between reading from either presentation medium. Five broad differences have been identified suggesting that reading from VDUs is slower, less accurate, more fatiguing, decreases comprehension and is rated inferior by readers. Evidence for the existence of each of these differences is reviewed and conclusions are drawn. In Section 3, ten variables which have been proposed as potential causes of reading differences between paper and screen are reviewed. These include screen dynamics, display polarity, orientation, viewing angle and user characteristics. Recent evidence by Gould et al.11 is presented which suggests that the image quality of the screen display is the crucial factor and indicate that positive presentation, high resolution and anti-aliasing interactively affect performance by enhancing the quality of the displayed image. The implications of this work for screen presentation of text are presented.

Electronic Book Use in a Public Library

This article reports on a study which aimed to investigate the potential for portable electronic book (e-book) devices within a public library context. The main method of data collection was a questionnaire distributed to all readers who borrowed a device during the project. Results are discussed in terms of (a) the users’ reaction to the device and the process of reading from it, and (b) the institutional considerations encountered by the collaborating librarians. It is not clear from the outcomes that portable e-books provide a viable delivery mechanism within a public library.

Human factors of journal usage and design of electronic texts

Abstract The paper reports on a study of journal usage amongst human factors researchers. The aim of the study was to shed light on how journals are used with a view to making recommendations about the development of a full-text, searchable database that would support such usage. The results indicate that levels of usage vary over time, the range of journals covered is small and readers overlook a large proportion of the contents of articles. Furthermore, three reading strategies are observed which indicate that the presentation of journal articles is not ideally suited to their uses. The implications of these findings for developing suitable computer-based applications are discussed.

The personal construction of information space

The present article describes the use of Repertory Grid methodology as a means of externalizing an individuals view of information space. The method is described with a single participant, and appears to offer a viable means of exploring the concept of information space. Future work will examine multiple views in an attempt to explore the extent to which the concept is shared among a group of people.

World Wide Web usability

This special issue arises out of a symposium entitled “The Missing Link: Hypermedia Usability Research & The Web”, held at The Open Universitys Knowledge Media Institute in May 1996 (Buckingham Shum, 1996). As the title suggests, we felt there was something missing between the vast amount of hypermedia and related human?computer interaction (HCI) research that has been conducted, and the most popular hypermedia system in existence?the World Wide Web. Certainly, the web community, by and large, seemed to be ignoring the hypermedia research literature and, as Santayana (1905) notes, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.However, it was possible that our view was inaccurate or even that the web was sufficiently different to its predecessors to make earlier findings irrelevant. The symposium set out to explore such issues.The idea for the symposium was obviously timely, following closely after two similar but independently organized events in the US. A workshop (Instone, 1996b) held during the Hypertext 96 conference was structured around the questions: What hypermedia research has influenced the web? What hypermedia research needs to be implemented in the web? What issues has the web raised which should be researched further? Similarly, the CHI 96 conference included a workshop on “HCI and the web” (Instone & Pemberton, 1996), subsequently reported by Instone (1996a).

Electronic journals: myths and realities

Considers the preliminary findings of the Cafe Jus research project, investigating end user reactions to electronic journals. Issues explored include: access to e‐journals; reading habits; human factors; financial implications; and the future roles of librarians, subscription agents and publishers in the electronic environment.

Information science in 2010: a Loughborough University view

This article presents issues relating to the future direction of the information science discipline. A 10-year time horizon is chosen so that predictions will not be influenced unduly by change in the information environment. To know where the discipline is going relies on knowledge of where it has been; this trajectory is investigated in terms of its historical development. The scientific basis of information science is addressed, together with issues relating to an all encompassing definition for the term “information.” Moving from theory into practice raises further issues, and an acknowledgment is made to the gradual change from its genesis as an academic discipline in the 1950s to its practitioner base in the 1990s. It is suggested that the wheel will turn full circle by 2010, during which time a lot of effort will be expended unifying methodologies that underpin different perspectives of the multifaceted term, information. Core activities are suggested, and indication made to exemplar application areas that allow the best practice to be identified. Management issues, such as performance measurement, are also alluded to. The conclusions drawn show that information science will make a significant contribution to other disciplines (e.g., manufacturing, business, healthcare), and that a number of opportunities and challenges will present themselves.

Reading for pleasure?: A summary of the findings from a survey of the reading habits of year 5 pupils

The paper presents the findings from a study of the reading habits and preferences of 132 mainstream pupils in Year 5 of the English education system. It examines whether or not the pupils enjoyed reading, and if so, why. It discusses what they read, by whom, and for how long. It compares these findings with the pupils’ television viewing and computer use. The study found that more females than males liked reading. Pupils mainly read for enjoyment or relaxation. Books were preferred to comics or magazines. The preferred type of story was adventure. The favourite author for females was Jacqueline Wilson, but for males there was no favourite. On a typical day, about half the sample read at home; all watched television; a quarter of the males, and less than a quarter of the females used a home computer. One fifth of the sample had read a book on a computer. The paper concludes that it is essential that schools and libraries prioritise reading for pleasure, if pupils are to be both competent and willing readers.