Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Specific Facet search in ERIC

Thesis for the paper that I am working on:

Theoretical models and demographic data reveal that human information seeking habits remain generally the same regardless of the interface in which information is sought

At this point I am specifically looking for information on the information seeking behaviors of people using digital information sources.

Facets:
Information seeking behaviors
Digital information sources

I browsed the subject headings in ERIC to identify subject terms for my facets.

Information seeking behaviors:
Information seeking 2724
User Needs (Information) 3563
Users (Information) 2877
Search strategies 3348
Information Needs 4515
Online Searching 2780

Digital information sources:
Internet 13195
Electronic journals 567
Electronic libraries 1645
Search Engines 643
Online systems 6795
World wide web 6077

Specific Facet search (all searches were in the Subject Phrase field)

I chose the most unique term that really reflected the Digital information sources facet.

S1: (Search Engines) = 643 hits

The results were too broad, but I could tell I was headed in the right direction. I then added a term to reflect the Information seeking behaviors facet.

S2: ((Search engines) AND (Users (Information))) = 0 hits

That didn't work, so I tried another term.

S3: ((Search engines) AND (Information seeking)) = 106 hits

I was satisfied with the results of my 3rd search.

Citation:
Bilal, D., & Kirby, J. (2002). Differences and Similarities in Information Seeking: Children and Adults as Web Users. Information Processing & Management. 38(5), 649-70.

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