Information Needs and Information Seeking:
Challenges and Opportunities
Raya Fidel
University of Washington
- With the spread of access to electronic information, many databases are
no longer searched by well-defined groups of users. The same source of
information can now serve a large variety of users. For example, Medline, a
database designed for physi cians, is searched by non-professional users in
public and academic libraries. But because searching behavior and
interactions are easier to study than ever before, it is possible now to
study factors of information needs, whether or not they are typical of a
certain user group. One may discover, for example, that some users would
rather not see information about a drug unless it is already available in
pharmacies. Without having to identify the group of users that has this
requirement, each article abo ut a drug could be "indexed" with the drug
status to support filtering/ranking of retrieval from Medline.
- Much of the information on the network is posted with no selection or
filtering; everyone (with the means to do so) can post documents in the
digital library. More users than before are likely to be authors as well.
This situation, while a challe nge, creates a unique opportunity for users
to participate in system design. For example, programs that include
software and index languages can be developed to train authors/users to
index their own documents and to receive their feedback to support the
development of useful index languages. We have very little experience with
users as creators of information and as active participants in the design
of retrieval mechanisms. Studies of these new phenomena will have direct
impact on our understanding of information needs.
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