During my two years at Rutgers, I’ve have not one, not two, but three classes that focus on information seeking behavior in library users. How people look for information, how they search catalogs, why they give up on searches, etc. I think this is all vital information to know as a future librarian because my future patrons (students) are the type to abandon a search when results aren’t found.
Carol Kuhlthau’s information seeking process (or isp for short) lays out the steps for the information seeking behavior. The stages of Kuhlthau’s model include: Task Initiation, Topic Selection, Topic Exporation, Focus Formulation, Resource Collection and Presentation (Kuhlthau, 1990). It’s found that usually during topic exploration students (or any searchers really) can meet frustration with their topic and abandon it. Topic exploration is the fundamentals of searching for information on any given topic and students can feel frustrated with the abundance of information that is presented to them or a lack of information. It can be hard to narrow your search for more specific results or expand your search if you know little about the topic you are trying to find information on.
There is an gap in the information seeking process if the user does not have the language to search for information on the topic. This is one of the reasons why I LOVE the Queens Public Library Aqua Browser! It provides users with related search terms that can add to their inquiries. A student searching for books on Mesopotamia may not know to search related terms such as babylonian, assyrian, or sumerian, but the Aqua browser provides these related terms (and more!) to help in the search process. This is a great tool and it’s visually stimulating as well. It has links that could help students broaden and narrow their search results. I like the idea of giving related search terms in a search engine, because there are so many times where users abandon searches due to frustration that comes from just not knowing the right word to search.
I also really like that the Aqua Browser gives alternate spelling options if the user mispells or mistypes the topic they are searching. I am a terrible speller by nature, and rely on tools like Googles “Did you mean _______?” to correct my mistakes! I think tools like these guide searchers towards the materials they are seeking, instead of returning zero results, which only leads to frustration.
Technology will ultimately change the way that users seek information, and already has via the Internet and online catalogs and databases. No longer do searchers need to actually go to the library to find what they need, mostly everything can be done remotely from where they are. Services like “ask a librarian” which allows users to chat via IM services in real time also has changed the way that people seek information. Information is easier to come by everyday, yet there is still a process that users go through to find information. It is the job of the librarian to teach students (and patrons in the public library) how to best utilize all the features and options available to maximize search results and minimize search frustration.
Kuhlthau, C. C. (1990). Inside the search process: Information seeking from the user’s perspective. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42 (5), 361-371
