Search Strategies of Library Search Experts

TL;DR

This study investigates how library and museum information professionals employ search strategies for complex, open-ended tasks, and examines how time pressure influences their search behavior and effectiveness.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into the search strategies of experienced information workers when handling complex search tasks under different time constraints.

Findings

Experienced searchers adapt strategies based on task complexity.

Time pressure affects search efficiency and decision-making.

Search strategies vary with task difficulty and time constraints.

Abstract

Search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing are an excellent support for finding documents, but this strength also imposes a limitation. As they are optimized for document retrieval tasks, they perform less well when it comes to more complex search needs. Complex search tasks are usually described as open-ended, abstract and poorly defined information needs with a multifaceted character. In this paper we will present the results of an experiment carried out with information professionals from libraries and museums in the course of a search contest. The aim of the experiment was to analyze the search strategies of experienced information workers trying to tackle search tasks of varying complexity and get qualitative results on the impact of time pressure on such an experiment.