Are users accustomed to using digital scholarly resources like these catalogues?

Digital catalogues have become a familiar resource to the target audience reached by our email survey. Over 90% of participants said they had browsed one in the past and more than a quarter of the respondents said they had contributed to one. Print catalogues are more familiar to the target audience, but this gap may narrow in the coming years as digital catalogues become more common.

Focus group participants also spoke at length about the many ways these catalogues could take advantage of their digital format and expressed high expectations for the catalogues’ technological bells and whistles. Their comments suggest that not only are these audiences familiar with digital catalogues, they have begun to see certain advanced features as the new normal for their research. (For additional information, see What special value do digital catalogues hold for users?)