Use of the book wizard : a multimedia book selection tool in a public library.

Abstract

This dissertation documents the trial use of a multimedia book selection system published in the United Kingdom for children, Book Wizard, at a public library. The project aimed to establish if local children find it useful and enjoy using it, and whether its use helped to promote loans at the Library, before the management decided whether to purchase more copies. It also aimed to provide feedback to the publisher, who was interested to improve the product to meet local expectations. A group of about 100 children was gathered for the study. Two surveys were conducted to gather their reading habits and interests, and to find out their opinion of the Book Wizard zfter having used it. Their loans for the three-month trial period was monitored and compared to similar data in the previous year to see if there was any significant improvement with the use of Book Wizard.