This 3-year project is funded by JISC, OCLC, Oxford University, and the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. It does not aim to answer ‗What works?' but ‗Why does it work?'. If we gain a better understanding of student and scholar motivations for engaging in the information environment, we have a greater chance of meeting expectations and creating services which are used and ultimately good value for money. We cannot continue to provide an educational version of every available platform in an attempt to mirror the web within institutions. We must make informed decisions on how to move forward to ensure that we will not be at the mercy of every ‗new' technology that becomes available nor will we be expending funds on services, systems, and facilities that are not used.The project is an attempt to fill the gap in user behaviour studies identified in the JISC Digital Information Seeker Report (2010). Connaway and Dickey (2010) call for a longitudinal study -to identify how individuals engage in both the virtual and physical worlds to get information for different situations could be conducted‖ (p. 56). They believe that -Such an investigation would contribute to a better understanding of how individuals navigate in multiple information environments and could influence the design and integration of systems and services for devices and applications, as well as cloud computing‖ (Connaway and Dickey (2010, p. 56). It utilises the visitors and residents principle described in the TALL blog (White 2008), which hypothesizes that neither age nor gender determines whether one is a visitor (one who logs on to the virtual environment, performs a specific task or acquires specific information, and then logs off) or a resident (one who has an ongoing, developing presence online).

Work on students' study practices posits the digital and material as separate domains, with the 'digital' assumed to be disembodied, decontextualised and free-floating, and spaces in the material campus positioned as prototypically 'traditional' and analogue. Libraries in particular are often characterised as symbolic of predigital literacy practices and forms of meaning making. This binary oversimplifies student engagement, particularly in relation to their creation of and interactions with texts. Two studies illustrate this: an investigation of student and staff textual practices that explored the complex and emergent networks they created, adapted and maintained; and one that explored perceptions and use of library spaces (digital and physical). A sociomaterial analysis shows the ongoing importance of institutional, personal and public spaces. This demonstrates that in order to enhance the student experience, a more nuanced understanding of the complex, emergent relationships between digital and print, device and user, and author and text is required.

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This longitudinal study tracks US and UK participants' shifts in their motivations and forms of engagement with technology and information as they transition between four educational stages. The quantitative and qualitative methods, including ethnographic methods that devote individual attention to the subjects, yield a very rich data set enabling multiple methods of analysis. Instead of reporting general information-seeking habits and technology use, this study explores how the subjects get their information based on the context and situation of their needs during an extended period of time, identifying if and how their behaviors change.

Modern library services can be incredibly complex. Much more so than their forebears, modern librarians must grapple daily with questions of how best to implement innovative new services, while also maintaining and updating the old. The efforts undertaken are immense, but how best to evaluate their success?In this groundbreaking new book from Routledge, library practitioners, anthropologists, and design experts combine to advocate a new focus on User Experience (or 'UX') research methods. Through a combination of theoretical discussion and applied case studies, they argue that this ethnographic and humancentred design approach enables library professionals to gather rich evidencebased insights into what is really going on in their libraries, allowing them to look beyond what library users say they do to what they actually do.Edited by the team behind the international UX in Libraries conference, User Experience in Libraries will ignite new interest in a rapidly emerging and gamechanging area of research. Clearly written and passionately argued, it is essential reading for all library professionals and students of Library and Information Science. It will also be welcomed by anthropologists and design professionals working in related fi elds.Andy Priestner manages Cambridge University's pioneering FutureLib innovation programme, employing user experience and design thinking to develop new library services across the university. He is the founder of the UX in Libraries Conference and provides training and consultancy on the subject to institutions across Europe.Matt Borg was an academic librarian at Sheffi eld Hallam University for fourteen years, during which time he was responsible for a new research-based approach to user experience. He is now a Solutions Expert at ProQuest's Ex Libris, where he works to bring new technology to libraries across Europe, as well as a freelance trainer in UX techniques.