The Evolution of User Studies

Abstract

User studies are one of the most researched areas in library and information science. These studies form a large body of literature in the discipline. Since user studies first appeared in the late 1940s their number has constantly increased. Menzel in the first Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (1966) refers to two comprehensive bibliographies of user studies in 1964 and 1965, each containing 438 and 676 studies respectively. This was just a first indication of the explosion that would take place a couple of decades la-ter. This article recounts the evolution of user studies by ex-ploring related key concepts of the field. It also discusses how research methods in other areas have influenced the work in this field. Finally, a literature review shows the di-versity and plethora of topics explored by various studies. Introduction and definitions

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