User Searching Behaviors (and Interactive Retrieval Techniques) within a Library Gateway William H. Mischo Mary C. Schlembach David S. Vess University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign November 13, 2008 DLF Fall Forum 2008

DLF 2008 Fall Forum University of Illinois Library Gateway Gateway Portal introduced in September 2007 –Guide users to appropriate information resources –Recommender system –Integration of resources –Help with search strategy formulation and refinement Custom Engineering Library portlet with fielded search approach Powered by metasearch system suite (Easy Search) Metasearch over 70 targets

DLF 2008 Fall Forum

Questions Will users find recommender approach useful? Can we characterize user information seeking behaviors? Can useful refinement and navigation services be introduced within the Gateway? What will search sessions look like?

DLF 2008 Fall Forum Easy Search Features Recommender system Transaction logs: 2.3 million user search arguments, 2.5 million clickthroughs. Analysis of search arguments, pattern checking Result displays influenced by search arguments AJAX driven display Links into the native interfaces at the point of completed search NISO MXG support

DLF 2008 Fall Forum User Studies Markey’s two papers on End-User Studies - JASIST 2007 –32 studies –Need for new OPAC studies –Library Portal/Gateway studies needed Spink and Jansen findings on Web searches –Short search sessions –Average search: 2.3 words –“Advanced features” not being utilized –Users typically look at first page of results only

DLF 2008 Fall Forum Search Assistance Technologies IMLS NLG grant, NSF NSDL grant, Mellon DLF Aquifer Deep transaction log analysis Interactive Information Retrieval (IIR): contextual suggestions & links Search refinement and navigational assistance Goal is “smarter” system; address the Too Few/Too Many problems

DLF 2008 Fall Forum Search Assistance Functions Stopword removal Term substitution Spelling suggestions Direct link prompts for frequently entered terms, pathfinder topics. Partial term matches Author search prompts Suggested limiting to phrase and title word and phrase searches Dark target searches in background

DLF 2008 Fall Forum

Author Search Patterns Robert A. Smith Smith, Robert A. Smith r. a. Smith RA Smith, RA R. Alan Smith Robert Smith

DLF 2008 Fall Forum Search Characterization Analysis of sample of 3,000 searches 49.4% “specific item” searches – book, journal, article title and/or author –7.4% of the 49.4% are author/title –28.9% are author –40.5% are monographic searches –6.8% are index/abstract –5.7% are journal article –11.8% are journal title 17.96% of searches contain a name or organization– some are topical

DLF 2008 Fall Forum Search Arguments 10.4% Booleans (10.15% AND, 0.2% OR, 0.1% NOT) 7.9% Commas 0.1% Parentheses 4.9% Quotes 20.5% Prepositions 9.8% Spell Suggests (31.5% are clicked) 0.06% % Question form 40.4% Follow-ups –10% are Author 6.7% Author redo link (17% clicked) 3% from phrase/title links 3.3% show Direct suggests (60.5% clicked) 2007 – 2008 Searches

DLF 2008 Fall Forum Gateway Tabs Distribution 47.7% Easy Search 25.1% Journal/Article Locator 13.6% Books 5.9% Journal Articles 0.02% Reference (Other) 2.8% Undergrad search 4.7% “Native Mode”

Easy Search -- Average Words per Query Words Number of Searches % 1118, , , , , , , , > 848, Total841,444100

Easy Search Words per Query Words Number of Searches % 133, , , , , , , , > 816, Total268,454100

2008 Grainger Portlet (Fielded) Words per Query Words Number of Searches % 114, , , , , , , , > 818, Total154,413100

DLF 2008 Fall Forum Clickthroughs 30.2% Academic Search Premier 24.9% Voyager Online Catalog 8.5% Scopus 7.1% ISI Web of Knowledge 6.8% InfoTrac 4.1% CARLI Statewide Catalog 3.1% Springer E-Books 2.7% E-Resource List 1.7% Google Books 1.1% Amazon 0.9% Google Scholar

DLF 2008 Fall Forum What We Have Learned Broad continuum of searches being performed– topical, specific item Users expect sophisticated parsing – mental model Spell suggestions important Must accommodate specific item search Author search and fielded search Used as Reference tool Search assistance being utilized

DLF 2008 Fall Forum Future Guided search module – “Help Getting Started” Tailored (vertical) search modules – dissertations, e-books, popular journal articles Faceted result displays Merging of results Agent approach

DLF 2008 Fall Forum