Information seeking in electronic information sources The Agony of Selection

The purpose of this thesis is to examine which factors influence librarians selection of electronic information sources, and to investigate whether librarians use of search strategies and search tactics changes depending on which information source they use. The electronic information sources are: online databases, Online Public Access Catalogues OPAC, World Wide Web, and CD-ROM databases. The theoretical framework is based on step 3 Select a source and step 4 Formulate a Query in Marchioninis information seeking model. The search strategies are divided into two categories: analytical and browsing strategies. In order to supplement the theoretical framework with empirical facts, 8 librarians were interviewed. The results show that the librarians selection of information sources is dependent on the expectations concerning the outcome of the search task, the information seekers previous knowledge of an information source, the accessibility of the information source, the authoritativeness of the information source, and the information seekers previous domain knowledge. The librarians use of search strategies and search tactics changes depending on which kind of information source they use and the nature of the search task. The librarians use a wider range of analytical search strategies, such as building blocks, successive facets, successive fractions when they conduct searches in online databases and OPACS compared to when they are using search engines on WWW. The use of analytical search strategies is also more common if the search task is well defined and structured. Browsing strategies are often used when the search task is ill defined and fuzzy.Uppsatsnivå: