Scholarly research 1. Science of information science 2. Scholarly Communications System 3. Search & retrieval: Structures 4. Search & retrieval: Behaviors --Break-- 5. Producing evidence 6. Research agenda 7. Knight Library

1: Cognition of search

ATTENTION “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it" Herb Simon

Sense-making Search and adjust representations Every single step entails (cognitive) costs Data extraction is primary cost – Finding -> selecting elements -> formal choice – Key “savings” and “anytime principle” Lower cost of clustering Lower cost of ordering Sense-making limits retrieval gains Russell, Stefik, Pirolli, Card (1993) The Cost Structure of Sense-making, Proceedings of InterCHI 1993

Optimal Foraging Theory Patchiness of food sources Variability of energy intake: Env. + search Used in many fields Marginal Value Theorem (Charnov, 1976)

Information foraging Peter Pirolli PARC

Information environment is “patchy” – Scattered: within article, across articles, type, etc. – Uneven quality – Variable visibility: ease of access – Dynamic Foraging factors – Information diet: types, preferences, encounter – Information scent (proximal cue): “attractiveness” – Enrichment (reduce travel, increase yield)

Rate of gain is overall value/interaction cost Information / time between plus in patch R = g(t W ) t B + t W