Competency J
Describe the fundamental concepts of information-seeking behaviors
Understanding the ways people search for information is an important part of assisting patrons. Library Web sites, particularly online catalogs and other search engines, should be designed with information-seeking behaviors in mind. Otherwise, if the interface is confusing or difficult to navigate, and patrons may become frustrated and leave. Understanding information-seeking behaviors is also important when helping patrons in the physical library. Not only do reference librarians need to understand their own search behaviors, they need to keep in mind that patrons may not know how to express their information need when they first come to the reference desk. Starting with a broad need or query and then refining it is one kind of search behavior, and it can be evident in face to face interactions as well as electronic searches.
People tend to prefer familiarity and ease of use over quality and accuracy. Novice searchers will choose easily available information sources, even when they are of low quality, and rather than continuing to search for the best results, they tend to be satisfied with any relevant material. Few searchers use Boolean logic or complex searches, preferring to use natural language searches, and few people bother to learn a particular search engine's rules.
Most information seeking is not done linearly. Search behavior typically consists of three stages: opening, which is a collection of activities that includes selecting sources and choosing search strategies; orientation, which focuses on identifying search directions, and which can feed back into opening; and consolidation, which is judging material to see if it satisfies the information need, possibly leading to refinement and back to opening and orientation. All three stages feed into one another.
Another model breaks searching behavior into six processes: starting, which is all activities related to the initial search; chaining, which is following footnotes or citations; browsing, which is semi-directed searching such looking through a table of contents or lists of titles; differentiating, which is filtering and selecting sources; monitoring, which is keeping up with current information and knowledge; extracting, which is searching a particular source or resource and selectively identifying relevant material; verifying, which is checking accuracy; and ending, which is tying up loose ends or doing a final search. These processes are not done in any particular order, but rather feed into each other. Some of the processes are typical of most searches, such as browsing or differentiating, but others, such as chaining, are not commonly done by novice searchers.
The first piece of evidence is a review of the book Ambient Findability by Peter Morville. Morville talks about how, while information sources keep evolving at an incredible rate, our brains are the same as they were 50,000 years ago. In other words, we're trying to use stone-age brains to cope with the 21st century. As a result, the information-seeking behaviors we developed as hunter-gatherers are essentially the same ones we use today to find information on the internet. We're designed for non-linear, opportunistic searches.
The second piece of evidence is an essay on findability and information seeking behavior I did for one of my classes on information technology tools and applications. In the first part of the essay I discuss how people tend to gather information passively, and put forth the least amount of work necessary to get the desired results. We arrange our environments so that active information seeking is minimized. This is something designers have to take into account when building Web pages; complicated or confusing pages, and pages that require a lot of effort on the part of the user, will get used less.
References:
Ansari, M. (2008, December). Information seeking behavior models: a review. Pak Library and Information Science Journal, 39 (4), 3-16
Bond, C. (2004). Web users' information retrieval methods and skills. Online Information Review, 28 (4), 254-259
Millsap, L., & Ferl, T. (1993, September). Search patterns of remote users: an analysis of OPAC transaction logs. Information Technology and Libraries, 321-343
Nahl, D., & Tenopir, C. (1996). Affective and cognitive searching behavior of novice end-users of a full-text database. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 47 (4), 276-286
Schwartz, J. (2002). Internet access and end-user needs. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 41 (3), 253-262