European Libraries and Electronic Resources
in Mathematical Sciences

The EULER Project

User Questionnaire
The deadline for submitting filled out questionnaires has passed. The page below reproduces the original questionnaire, but without the submission buttons.

EULER User Questionnaire

The aim of the EU Project EULER is to provide a user-oriented integrated access to networked information resources in the field of mathematics for mathematicians as well as for other scientists and interested users.

Our objective is to develop a prototype system that will serve as a single entry point to existing information sources such as bibliographic databases, library catalogues, electronic preprint archives, fulltexts of scientific publications, and other networked resources.

Since we want the structure of the system to be user-oriented, we have designed this questionnaire in order to get a better understanding of the requirements of prospective users. So, please, help to make the EULER system as suitable and effective for your needs as possible by filling out this form. We estimate that it takes no longer than 10 minutes to complete this questionnaire.

If you have any questions or comments about the questionnaire or the EULER system, please contact Michael Jost (jo@zblmath.fiz-karlsruhe.de). You may also find information about EULER at the projects homepage at http://www.emis.de/projects/EULER/

All the information you give us will be considered confidential. It will be used exclusively to help us to define the user requirements for the system we are developing.

I Your background

1. Which of the following listings describes your profession? Please check all that apply.
  University
Industry
Educational
Information resource manager
Library
Other: (please specify)
2. Which of the following describes your employer? Please check all that apply.
  Government
Educational institution
Research institution
Library
Industry
Information provider
Publisher
Self-employed
Other form of employer: (please specify)
Non-profit organisation
For-profit organisation
3. Are you mathematician by education?
  Yes; please specify your field of work
No; please specify your educational background
4. What sort of electronic information system do you use today? How often do you use these different forms? Please check the entries for frequency of usage and rank them according to their relevance for your work.
 
Frequency:
        1: one or more times a day
2: one or more times a week
3: one or more times a month
4: less than above
5: never / not available
 
Relevance:
        1: highly important to your work
to
5: not at all important to your work
General
  1 2 3 4 5
Internet services in general
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
WWW
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
Internet search engines
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
Other online access (please specify)
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
Bibliographic and Reference Databases
  Library online catalogues
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
Bibliographic databases (e.g. MathSciNet, CompuMath, Zentralblatt / MATH)
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
 
How do you access them?
CD-ROM Network
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
 Name:
CD-ROM Standalone
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
Internet
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
other online access:
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
Electronic full-text resources
  Electronic journals
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
Electronic books
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
Electronic Dissertations
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
Electronic Preprints
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
Electronic Lecture Notes / Conference Proceedings
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
Electronic delivery systems for print-only material
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
Other full-text sources on the net
 Frequency:
 Relevance:
5. Which WWW browser do you use?
  version
6. How are you connected to the Internet
  Campus
Business/corporate
Home
Other forms

II Functionality of the EULER-System

In this section, you have the opportunity to take direct influence on the design of our service.

EULER services should enable the user to make effective use of the mathematical library-related information resources and publications offered with a single user interface. Time-consuming tasks associated with the use of non-integrated services should be eliminated.

Please indicate your personal ranking about each of the subsequently listed questions on a range from very important (highly favourable opinion) (1) to not very important (highly unfavourable opinion) (5).

1. What use would you make of a one-stop information system as described in the introduction?
  1 2 3 4 5
searching items for verification of citations
searching items to get the document
get an overview of the literature in some field
get an overview of the publication activities of single authors
keep up-to-date with developments in special areas
other (please specify)
 
2. What category is important for your search? What would be your preferred search field?
  1 2 3 4 5
Author
Title
Classification
  Mathematics Subject Classification (MSC)
Others: (please specify)
Keywords
Type of publications (e.g. Journals, books, preprints, ...)
Publisher
Journal title
Date of publication
Other fields to be included (please specify)
 
3. What form of search and navigation would you prefer / should be selected?
  1 2 3 4 5
Searching the database:
  one line simple search in all fields
menu driven multi-field search (e.g. author, title,...)
features for menu-driven multi-field search:
  selectable Truncation
"wild cards"
clickable boolean operators
proximity functions
command language interface
Browsing through different database fields:
  Index of author names
Navigate through the classifications system tree
Title index
Keywords
Other browsing fields: (please specify)
 
4. What information sources would be important for you? Please give a ranking between the different sources (1: highly important; 5: unimportant).
  1 2 3 4 5
Bibliographic databases
Online library catalogues and databases (OPACs)
E-journals
Preprints
Proceedings
Others: (please specify)
 
1 2 3 4 5
5. Would it be important to restrict search on specific resource types (e.g. preprint, e-journal, ...)?
 
6. Would it be important to restrict search on specific Information providers (libraries, institutions, ...)?
 
7. Please indicate your preferences regarding result presentation
  1 2 3 4 5
How important would be a "Refine Search" menue on the result display screen?
How important would be selectable sorting by different fields?
And what would be your preferred ordering of found items
  by author
by title
by year
by type
by other (please specify)
How important would be sorting by automatic relevance rankin
Should long and short (e.g only author, title) result display lists be selectable
And which display would you prefer as default
  long
short
How many hits per page should be displayed as default
  10
20
30
40
50
more
 
1 2 3 4 5
8. If you find references to print-only documents in the database, how important would be automated document ordering and delivery for you?
 And how would you like to receive those documents?
  scanned images (TIFF) by e-mail
Ariel
Fax
copies via normal mail
 
1 2 3 4 5
9. How important would be multilingual features in the user interface?
 
10. If you are in favour of multilingual features, where do you expect them? Please rank 1: highly desirable to 5: not at all needed
  1 2 3 4 5
Main menu
Search interface
Help texts
Classification
Thesaurus
Others: (please specify)
 
11. If you are in favour of multilingual features, in what languages do you expect them?
  French
Spanish
Swedish
Dutch
German
Poruguese
Italian
Others: (please specify)
 
12. If you use some of the existing search engines, which one do you prefer?
  (please specify)
Why?
 
13. What search engine has for you the most effective interface design?
  (please specify)
What makes it most effective in your eyes?
 
14. Are there special functions that you want to see incorporated into the EULER engine?
 

To thank you for your help we will send you information on the progress of our system and other related information. Please give your details below in case you want to receive further information:

Name:
Job Title:
Organisation:
Address:
E-mail:

All the information you give us will be considered confidential. It will be used exclusively to help us to define the user requirements for the system we are developing.