OPAC i moderna kläder : en kvalitativ studie om olika generationers informationssökningsvanor och förväntningar på informationsåtervinningssystem

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to find out how information seeking habits and experiences of people in different generations affects their expectations on information retrieval systems like OPAC. Two OPACs are used, one web-OPAC and one mobile-OPAC. The following questions are asked: how can theories about information seeking behaviors explain why and in which way one seeks information? In which way does information seeking behaviors and habits affect the experience of OPAC? Which differences and/or similarities can be found between the web-OPAC and the mobile-OPAC? How does generational aspects affect experiences and preferences in an information seeking context? The theoretical framework of the thesis is information retrieval with several models about information-seeking/searching needs and behaviors. The empirical data contains interviews with nine people in different generations and protocols about two different OPACs. The results of this bachelor thesis show that generational aspects do not affect information habits and experience in a broader sense and that it depends on the contextual environment. The results also show that earlier experiences of information retrieval systems do affect the users in many ways and brings high expectations when they interact with other systems, like OPAC. One connection that we found is very important for the evolution of the modern OPAC, the users habits of social media and the interactive web environment.