A comparative analysis on digital libraries and academic search engines from the dual-route perspective
ISSN: 0264-0473
Article publication date: 15 June 2021
Issue publication date: 17 July 2021
Abstract
Purpose
Digital libraries and academic search engines have developed as two important online scholarly information sources with different features. The purpose of this study is to compare digital libraries and academic search engines from the perspective of the dual-route model.
Design/methodology/approach
Research hypotheses were developed. Potential participants were recruited to answer an online survey distributing at Chinese social media out of which 251 responses were deemed to be valid and used for data analysis. The paired samples t-test was used to compare the means.
Findings
Both information quality (central route) and source credibility (peripheral route) of digital libraries are significantly higher than those of academic search engines, while there is no significant difference between digital libraries and academic search engines in terms of affinity (peripheral route).
Practical implications
In the digital information society, the important status of digital libraries as conventional information sources should be spread by necessary measures. Academic search engines can act as complementary online information sources for seeking academic information rather than the substitute for digital libraries. Practitioners of digital libraries should value the complementary role of academic search engines and encourage users to use academic search engines while emphasizing the importance of digital libraries as conventional information sources.
Originality/value
According to the dual-route model, this study compares digital libraries and academic search engines in terms of information quality, source credibility and affinity, which the authors believe presents a new lens for digital libraries research and practice alike.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos 71804136, 71874124, 71774126, 71573195), the Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education, China (Grant No 17YJC870022), the Construction Project of “Double First-Class” Discipline “Library, Information Science and Data Science” of the Ministry of Education, China, and “the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities” (Grant No 2020AI023).
Citation
Cao, F., Zhang, J., Zha, X., Liu, K. and Yang, H. (2021), "A comparative analysis on digital libraries and academic search engines from the dual-route perspective", The Electronic Library, Vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 354-372. https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-09-2020-0265
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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