Dissertation Research: An Investigation of Citizens' Transactional use of Web-Sites in Public Libraries

这篇科学与技术研究论文研究改进补助金将通过考虑公共图书馆的便利条件、用户特征、社会影响和个人对公共使用行为的影响来研究公共场所网站交易性使用的决定因素。假设这四个维度会影响公共环境中计算机网站的交易性使用。先前的研究已经确定了信息技术的实际使用与支持使用技术的便利条件之间的直接关系。过去的研究也建立了心理隐私、建筑隐私和任务隐私之间的联系，涉及人们在工作空间中感到舒服的活动；然而，迄今为止还没有关于位于公共图书馆的计算机的这些属性的研究。这一研究问题将通过收集经常使用公共计算机的人的数据进行测试，并对结果进行统计分析。从与实际用户的初步讨论中出现的隐私的另一个方面是个人对第三方跟踪网络活动的关注。这个新的维度也将在这个项目中得到探索。定义数字鸿沟的两个方面是社会经济地位和个人的地理位置。SES较低的人往往是图书馆公共计算机的常规用户，因为他们无法访问其他地区的计算机。农村地区家庭缺少计算机的情况比城市地区要高一些，农村地区的互联网连接质量更差，因此公共图书馆提供了高质量地获取技术和在线资源的来源。SES较低的人和生活在农村地区的人更关心工作场所的隐私。这些担忧可能会延伸到他们愿意在公共场所与网站进行交易。考虑到这两个群体往往是公共计算设施的常客，图书馆公共计算机的物理环境可能会限制这两个群体的人充分参与以电子方式提供的政府和商业服务。该项目假设，SES水平将与网站的公共交易性使用有关，此外，地理居住位置也将影响公共环境中网站的交易性使用。将制定抽样计划，以便从这些不同的组收集数据，然后使用统计方法对这些假设进行检验，以评估组之间的差异。将利用网络调查和纸质调查相结合的方式，最大限度地提高答复。政府和私营企业正在花费大量的时间和资源通过网站为公民提供广泛的服务，但如果公民不愿意充分利用这些服务的各个方面，那么这些努力就是徒劳的。关于数字鸿沟问题的文献表明，公共图书馆是为没有私人计算机和/或互联网连接的公民提供服务的主要来源。在以前的研究中，在这种公共背景下使用的决定因素没有被调查或量化。这个项目是对其中一些决定因素进行实证调查和量化的努力。这项研究建议调查公民在公共场所使用计算机通过网站完成信息和货币交易的情况。这篇论文改进建议的范围涵盖纽约州，包括农村和城市地区，除了得到当地图书馆系统主任的支持外，还得到了纽约州立图书馆馆长和技术总监的支持。这项研究的影响范围从个人公共计算空间到寻求以电子方式向公民提供服务的组织。如果我们要通过公共计算机提供使用政府服务的途径来弥合数字鸿沟，那么提供计算机的方式需要使公民愿意使用网站上提供的所有功能。该项目将考虑城乡居民之间的差异以及不同社会经济地位成员之间的差异。这些结果将影响纽约州现有的公共接入基础设施，未来可能适用于美国其他州。这项研究的结果将在期刊和网站上传播，还将用于由合作绩效机构教授的图书馆学和信息系统课程。统计数据显示，低收入和少数族裔公民是公共图书馆计算机使用最多的群体，因此本次调查明确针对这一群体。

This Science and Technology Studies Dissertation Research Improvement Grant will examine the determinants of the transactional use of websites in public locations by considering the facilitating conditions in a public library, user characteristics, social influence and individual affect toward the public usage behavior. It is hypothesized that these four dimensions will impact the transactional use websites from computers in this public environment. Prior research has established a direct relationship between the actual use of IT and the facilitating conditions which support the use of technology. Past work has also established a link between psychological privacy, architectural privacy and task privacy with respect to the activities that people feel comfortable pursuing in a workspace; however there is no work to date which examines these attributes with respect to computers located in public libraries. The research question will be tested by gathering data from people actively using public computers and the results will be statistically analyzed. Another dimension of privacy that has emerged from the PIs preliminary discussions with actual users is the individual concern about third party tracking of activities on the web. This new dimension will also be explored during this project. Two of the dimensions that define the digital divide are the socioeconomic status (SES) and the geographical location of the individuals. People with lower SES tend to be regular users public computers in libraries as they do not have access to computers in other areas. The lack of computers in homes is somewhat higher in rural than urban areas, and the quality of the internet connections are poorer in rural areas, therefore public libraries provide a source of quality access to technology and online resources. People with lower SES and people who live in rural areas exhibit more concerns about privacy in the workplace. These concerns may extend into their willingness to transact business with a website in a public location. Considering that these two groups tend to be regular users of public computing facilities, the physical environment of the public computer in a library may inhibit people in these groups from fully participating in government and commercial services delivered electronically. The project hypothesizes that the SES level will be related to the public transactional use of websites and in addition, the geographical residence location will also impact the transactional use of websites in a public environment. The sampling plan will be devised so that data will be gathered from these different groups and these hypotheses will then be tested using statistical methods to evaluate differences between the groups. A combined web and paper survey will be utilized to maximize the responses. Governments and private enterprises are spending vast amounts of time and resources to provide a wide range of services to citizens through web sites, however if the citizens are not willing to fully use all aspects of the services then the efforts are in vain. Literature addressing the problem of the digital divide indicates that public libraries are a primary source of service provision for citizens who do not have private computers and/or internet connectivity. The determinants of usage within this public context have not been investigated or quantified in prior research. This project is an effort to empirically investigate and quantify some of these determinants. This research proposes to examine citizen's use of computers in public locations for completing informational and monetary transactions with websites. The scope of this dissertation improvement proposal encompasses New York State, includes both rural and urban areas and has received the support of the NYS State Librarian and the Director of Technology in addition to the support from the director of the local library system. The impact of this research reaches from the individual public computing space up to organizations seeking to electronically provide services to citizens. If we are to bridge the digital divide by providing access to government services through public computers, then the computers need to be provided in such a manner that citizens will be willing to use the full range of functionality provided on the web sites. Differences between rural and urban residents and differences between different socioeconomic status members will be considered within this project. These results will impact the established public access infrastructure found in New York State and in the future could apply to other states across the US. The results of this research will be disseminated in journals and websites and also be used in courses in Library Science and Information Systems that are taught by the co-PIs. Statistics indicate that low income and minority citizens are the heaviest users of public library computers, therefore this investigation clearly targets this group.