Factors affecting undergraduates' selection of online library resources in academic tasks: Usefulness, ease-of-use, resource quality, and individual differences

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore multiple factors affecting online library resource selection by undergraduate students. Three dimensions of factors are investigated including usefulness and ease-of-use, resource quality, and individual differences. Design/methodology/approach – An instrument was developed to measure various aspect factors and online library resource use intention. A survey was administered to 332 undergraduate students. Quantitative analysis, including structural equation modeling, ANOVA, and t-tests, was used to statistically examine the effects of the identified 11 factors on the use intention of online library resources. Findings – The findings indicated that both usefulness and ease-of-use positively influenced the undergraduates’ use intention of online library resources. Also, five resource quality constructs – accessibility, credibility, coverage, currency, and format – were the determinants of online library resources use intention. Interestingly, the effect of a...

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