Information Filtering, Evaluative Information Overload, and User Satisfaction in Digital Libraries: Evidence from a PLS-SEM Study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56042/alis.v73i2.30490Keywords:
Digital Libraries, Information Filtering, Evaluative Information Overload, User Satisfaction, Cognitive Engagement, PLS-SEMAbstract
This research examines structural relationship between information filtering, information overload and user satisfaction in the context of digital library environments. Even though information filtering typically assumed to decrease cognitive burden, very little empirical evidence explained how information filtering mechanisms affects evaluative cognition and satisfaction in information intensive academic systems. The survey data was analysed using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach, with 390 active digital library users’ respondents.
The results show that information filtering has a positive and significant effect on perceived information overload (β = 0.236, p < 0.001), suggesting that access to information resources that are rich with information relevance can increase evaluative cognitive demands in digital information interaction. Significantly also, Perceived information overload was related to user satisfaction (β = 0.158, p = 0.003), indicating that as perceived information overload increases, user satisfaction with digital library use might also increase.
It is a constructive evaluative state resulting from environments in which people retrieve information that are relevance-intensive and not just a negative cognitive state, which is what people have been thinking of perceived information overload up until now. Besides, mediation analysis which shows that perceived information overload completely mediated the relationship between information filtering and user satisfaction, and the direct relationship between information filtering and user satisfaction was not statistically valid (β=0.091, p>0.05).
The findings have implications for digital library scholarship, showing how evaluative cognitive engagement can be an important explanatory mechanism of the linkage between information filtering processes and user satisfaction in today's digital knowledge environments.
