Internet was just one of the services available to faculty members at the University of
Arizona. Ashley's methodology included qualitative and quantitative components. In
addition to her quantitative survey form, Ashley conducted 21 in-depth interviews.
Ashley discovered that less than 40% of the faculty used network information retrieval to
satisfy their information needs.
In her dissertation research, Reneker (1993 & 1992) studied information seeking
by the Stanford University academic community. In particular, she wanted to answer
"what is the set of questions/information needs in an individual's mind at the point of
time of his or her participation in the study" (1993, p. 494)? She discovered (p. 495) that
individuals at Stanford University had a wide variety of information needs. Some of these
needs included "personal, scholarly or academic, work-related, political, and
entertainment." To satisfy these needs, individuals sought facts, instructions on using
research tools, or "improving the current state of knowledge about a subject... The
study's findings showed the informants to be proactive, successful information seekers,
actively engaged in building their information sources and in both negotiating and
creating their environment to satisfy those needs" (p. 495).
In another general survey of faculty members, Hart (1997) surveyed the faculty at
the State University of New York's Fredonia campus. This was a small, comprehensive
college campus. He found that the faculty members used both formal and informal
sources to satisfy their information needs (p. 22). The formal sources included the faculty
member's personal library, the campus library, and access to other libraries through
interlibrary loan. The informal sources included colleagues within the faculty member's

46