World Cat and ERIC

I am searching ERIC and World Cat for information for a group paper that I will be doing in my LS5813 Information Professions class. The topic is Trends in Information Seeking Behaviors. I don’t know much about the topic, yet, so I’m just browsing what’s available.

My Search Strategy:

	ERIC
	Search #	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
	Index (Field searched)	Abstracts	Abstracts	Descriptor Phrase	Descriptor Phrase	Descriptor Phrase	Descriptor Phrase	Descriptor Phrase	Descriptor Phrase
	Search Terms	information-seeking AND trends	information-retrieval	(users (information) OR user needs (information)) AND (information seeking OR information retrieval)	(users (information) OR user needs (information)) AND (information seeking OR information retrieval)	(users (information) OR user needs (information)) AND (information seeking OR information retrieval)	(users (information) OR users (information)) AND (information seeking OR information retrieval) AND (problem solving OR search strategies)	(users (information) OR users (information)) AND (information seeking OR information retrieval) AND (problem solving OR search strategies)	(users (information) OR users (information)) AND (information seeking OR information retrieval) AND (problem solving OR search strategies)
	Limits/ Rankings				limited search by language phrase (English), full text, subscriptions held by my library, rank by relevance	rank by relevance		rank by relevance	rank by relevance, limit by full text
	# Hits	6	44	524	8	524	159	159	32
	# Potentially useful hits	3	8	16 (of 1st 30)	1	11 (of 1st 30)	12 (of 1st 30)	16 (of 1st 30)	8
	Notes:	looked in subject descriptors for terminology clues	Looked at Descriptors of useful results. Determined descriptor search strategy from frequency of descriptor phrases.	Too broad	Too restrictive!	Better results w/o relevance!			Final search, looking for immediately available (Full Text) sources.
			behavior patterns, information systems**, user needs (information)**,  Users (information)*****, problem solving**, search strategies***, information seeking****, information retrieval***, information needs

 

For the ERIC database the entry I chose, which I found on both Search #6 & Search #8, is:

Rudner, L. (2000). Who is going to mine digital library resources? and how? Retrieved

September 28, 2009, from ERIC database.

 

	WorldCat
	Search #	1	2	3	4	5	6
	Index (Field searched)	Subject Phrase	Descriptor	Descriptor	Descriptor/Keyword	Descriptor/Keyword	Title Phrase
	Search Terms	(information seeking) AND (behavior)	(information seeking) AND (behavior)	(information seeking) AND (behavior)	(Information retrieval) OR (information-seeking behavior) (Descriptor) AND library (KW)	(Information retrieval) OR (information-seeking behavior) (Descriptor) AND library (KW)	Information seeking behavior
	Limits/ Rankings	ranked by relevance	ranked by relevance	Limited by: English, items in my library. Ranked by relevance	ranked by relevance	Limited by: TWU & English, ranked by relevance	English & relevance
	# Hits	1	55 (English 54)	0	8034 (English7536)	199	4
	# Potentially useful hits	<1	1			3 (2 unique titles)	4
	Notes:	Possible Descriptors: Information Science, User Needs, Behavior	Too many hits about "Driver behavior"	Go back to Search #2 & find better descriptors!	Limit by TWU & English!	No abstracts, might as well try searching by title.	For all 4 titles: Only 1 copy available (not at TWU or in Texas).
				Survey of Information Seeking Behavior, searching behavior, Information retrieval, information-seeking behavior

For the World Cat database the entry I chose, which I found on Search #5, is:

Case, D. O. (2007). Looking for information: A survey of research on information seeking, needs,

and behavior (2nd ed.). Amsterdam; Boston: Elsevier/Academic Press.

I found my search on ERIC to be much more fruitful. I found many more items that were related to my topic, and being able to read the abstracts was very helpful. However, I do plan to get the book that I found on World Cat (through ILL) because I am hoping that it will have a more cohesive treatment of the subject, rather than having to piece together the findings of multiple studies.