Individual searching style has a primary effect on searching behavior. The case study method provided data about elements of searching styles through: (1) observation of 47 professional searchers performing their job-related searches; and (2) analysis of verbal and search protocols. Statistical associations among a number of variables reveal three dimensions of searching behavior: level of interaction, preference for operational or conceptual moves, and preference for textwords or descriptors. The interactive searcher ac-tively modifies search strategies and uses a relatively large number of search keys (or search terms). The op-erationalist searcher prefers to employ operational moves and is less concerned with recall than his con-ceptualist counterpart. The free-text searcher prefers to use textwords, has developed a habit of not consulting a thesaurus, and is more likely to regularly receive practi-cal questions. Findings also indicate that searchers en-countered difficulties in achieving satisfactory recall, regardless of their searching style. Future research should focus on mechanisms to improve recall and on factors that affect the development of searching styles.

ueries using all search facets identified from requests, low complexity was achieved by formulating queries with major facets only. Query expansion was based on a thesaurus, from which the expansion keys were elicited for queries. There were five expansion types: (1) the first query version was an unexpanded, original query with one search key for each search concept (original search concepts) elicited from the test thesaurus; (2) the synonyms of the original search keys were added to the original query; (3) search keys representing the narrower concepts of the original search concepts were added to the original query; (4) search keys representing the associative concepts of the original search concepts were added to the original query; (5) all previous expansion keys were cumulatively added to the original query. Query structure refers to the syntactic structure of a query expression, marked with query operators and parentheses. The structure of queries was either weak (queries with n

Abstract. A major challenge faced by users during the information search and retrieval process is the selection of search terms for query formulation and expansion. Thesauri are recognised as one source of search terms which can assist users in query construction and expansion. As the number of electronic thesauri attached to information retrieval systems has grown, a range of interface facilities and features have been developed to aid users in formulating their queries. The pilot study reported here aimed to explore and evaluate how a thesaurus-enhanced search interface assisted end-users in selecting search terms. Specifically, it focused on the evaluation of users ' attitudes toward both the thesaurus and its interface as tools for facilitating search term selection for query expansion. Thesaurusbased searching and browsing behaviours adopted by users while interacting with a thesaurus-enhanced search interface were also examined. 1.

We describe the design of an User Interface for a ranked output Information Retrieval system that integrates querying, navigation and visualization in a seamless fashion. Highlights of the system include the following: ffl Using a visualization scheme, the interface provides visual feedback to the user about how the query words influence the ranking of retrieved documents. ffl By simple drag-and-drop operations of objects on the screen, the interface facilitates a naive end-user in constructing complex structured queries and in providing relevance feedback. ffl To suit the evolving information needs of the user, the interface supports navigational features such as browsing documents by specific authors and browsing the Table of Contents of publications. ffl The interface integrates an online thesaurus which provides words related to the query that can be used by the user to expand the original query. By providing a rich set of features, the interface coherently supports a wide spect...

Human information behavior is emerging as an important component of information studies. As in many emerging research areas, one challenge is to identify important facets of human information behavior and understand how different methods can be best used to research these facets. This paper presents the framework of an approach to designing and synthesizing research studies in human information behavior. The framework emerges from previous research in human information behavior and incorporates Ranganathan’s framework for knowledge organization. It proposes that research studies that investigate human information behavior should consider the following facets: personality, matter, energy, space, and time. Personality refers to actors, and in this framework includes participants and their social networks. Matter refers to the target of the action. It includes information and information resources, including services and technology that may provide access to information. Energy is the action itself, including the participants ’ tasks, processes, and goals. Space is the environment of the action, and includes physical space as well as organizational and sociopolitical contexts. Time is the nonspatial continuum in which actions and events occur; in the framework, time is considered an episode, interval, or eon. Facets that should be investigated and taken into account in a study help guide the selection of the research methods for the study. Furthermore, research results from multiple studies can be synthesized by understanding the relationships among the facets investigated in the different studies. We thank Bob Losee, Paul Solomon, and Barbara Wildemuth for their comments on a draft of this paper, and our study participants throughout the years.

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We report on two types of experiments with respect to manually-assigned keywords to documents in a collection. The first type of experiment examines the usefulness of manually-assigned keywords to automatic feedback. The second type of experiment considers the potential benefits of these keywords to the user as an interactive tool. Several experiments were run and compared. The results of these experiments indicate that there is no gain in average precision when manuallyassigned

Abstract. The exploration of large information spaces is a difficult task, especially if the user is not familiar with the terminology used to describe information. Conceptual models of a domain in terms of thesauri or ontologies can leverage this problem to some extend. In order to be useful, there is a need for interactive tools for exploring large information sets based on conceptual knowledge. We present a thesaurus based browser that supports a mixed-initiative exploration of large online resources that provides support for thesaurus-based search and topic-based exploration of query results. We motivate the chosen exploration strategy the browser functionality, present the results of user studies and discuss future improvements of the browser. 1

The purpose of this research was to examine the information-seeking processes

Textile electronic marketplace, business vocabulary, business document, product data integration, vocabulary integration, document integration, semantic consistency maintenance, semantic interoperability, electronic commerce, electronic business. This paper has proposed a novel common textile vocabulary and document framework (TexVDF) in a collaborative network to enable cross-domain level business information sharing and business document exchange in a semantically consistent way. The approach to this framework is motivated through presenting some real-world examples of business inquiries with product specifications. By these examples, two problems are detected on how to achieve semantic commonality between cross-domain level business vocabularies for textile e-Marketplace mediators and how to allow specificity of cross-domain level common business document templates for local textile e-Marketplace mediators yet still maintaining semantic consistency. To solve these two problems, this paper has firstly reviewed CONEX technologies relevant to the newly developed TexVDF approach, which includes a TexVDF framework, a P2P collaborative textile concept mapping model and a textile business document template model. These two models have been demonstrated by examples to see how they should work. 1