Remotely Familiar: Using Computerized Monitoring to Study Remote Use

COMPUTERIZED MONITORING HAS BEEN USED for decades to study the behavior of remote users of online library resources. The older method of using transaction log analysis to study how remote users interact with online catalogs and abstracting and indexing services recently has been complemented by the use of Web server log analysis to study how remote users navigate into and through library-created and library-supported Web sites. The technique is particularly well suited to the task because the behavioral data can be gathered unobtrusively without interrupting the user’s search for information because, compared to in-library use, it is relatively easy to identify discrete search sessions, and remote users are much more reliant on computerized library systems than are in-library users. For remote library users, content, context, and assistance all are delivered through the same channel and interface. The diffusion of remote access techniques and behavior among the information-seeking population raises some fundamental questions about the nature of access. The two goals of this article are to review what computerized monitoring has revealed about remote use and to examine some of the larger issues raised by remote