LRRT Announces Winner of the 2007 Ingenta Research Award
The Library Research Round Table (LRRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) recently announced a team of researchers from Miami University, Ohio; Aaron Shrimplin, John Fink, Susan Hurst, and Kevin Messner as winner of the 2007 Ingenta Research Award.
Ingenta is proud sponsor for the second year of the award, granted annually by LRRT to support research projects in the fields of acquisition, use and preservation of digital content. This year’s award will support the group’s study, User Attitudes Toward E-books: A Q Methodology Study.
Administered by an independent committee nominated by LRRT, award applications were assessed based on five criteria: the appropriateness of the proposed project to understanding of seeking and use of digital information, significance of the problem, design of the study, qualifications of the investigator(s) and realism of the timetable.
$6,000 will be funded to the study group over the next year and their research is expected to be completed by June 2008.
Joan Stein, 2006/2007 Chair, LRRT Steering Committee, comments, “We are proud to have this affiliation with Ingenta and deeply appreciate their generosity and their commitment to furthering research in our field. This year’s Ingenta Award winners now have the funding to fully explore their study of user attitudes toward e-books, which should benefit libraries of all types.”
The group’s research will doubtless receive great interest from both publishers and librarians alike. To date, there has been little research investigating e-book user attitudes and satisfaction and even fewer studies have examined why and how e-books are chosen and utilised by patrons, despite the increasing prevalence of e-books.
“Ingenta is pleased to support such a timely research paper,” adds Douglas Wright, Vice President of Ingenta. “With electronic book content growing exponentially, we recognize the importance of thoroughly understanding user behavior. This tightly-focused study will be a valuable resource to many in our industry and we are pleased to be supporting this critical research.”
The Library Research Round Table (LRRT) was founded in 1968 to contribute toward the extension and improvement of library research. LRRT organizes activities that support and recognize research and it provides public programs that inform and educate ALA members about the theoretical base of the field and about research methods and findings that improve library services and administration.