Course:LIBR559A/Fidel, R. (2012)
Citation
Fidel, R. (2012). Five search strategies. Human Information Interaction: An Ecological Approach to Information Behavior (pp. 97-118). MIT Press.
Objective
the research has been developed to create changes that would improve the quality of life in terms of investigating diverse methods of how people search for information
Design
qualitative approach to research
Setting/Sample
"...participants included librarians searching online bibliographic databases on behalf of users; engineers looking for information in various modes, including collaborative information retrieval; high school students searching the web to complete homework assignments; and sanitation workers using mobile technology in the field" (Preface, x).
Methodology
Marxism and feminism brought up. The author analyzes the environment of human interaction with information over the period of the last 30 years (Preface, x).
Main Results
five basic search strategies are developed.
Discussion
Fidel begins to define search strategies as: "Unlike information need, which is relatively stable, search strategy addresses the dynamic part of the search process itself" (p.97). The author recognizes that research about search strategies has begun in the late 1970's but the concept has remained quite fluid. He later compares and discusses several definitions provided by other researchers; however, Fidel provides constructive criticism judging which parts of the definition agree with his view and describes what each definition is lacking. He finally concludes by saying: "One promising approach to reduce this confusion is to view a search strategy as a category of plans, general approaches, or interactive intentions" (p.102). Moreover, in his research, Fidel considers how people respond to their economic, social, political, cultural, individual, and collective aspects of life. "Human information interaction or HII examines the relationships between humans and information with the support of all forms of technology such as face-to-face communication, paper, or advanced technology" (Preface, x).
Fidel introduces and explains five search strategies:
- Browsing is the most used type of search strategies and it offers the most freedom to searchers while promoting this idea of: why don't I begin here and I will see where it takes me (p.107).
- Analytical is defined as advanced search aimed at arriving directly at desired information."This is the rational, decision-making and problem-solving strategy" (p.107).
- Empirical is an approach to search based on previous experience, while using rules and tactics that we successful in the past. It can only be used if the person has previous experience - it is this idea of "In a situation like this, this is what I usually do" (p.107).
- Known-site is recognized when a person searching for information knows precisely where to go to and hence, is headed directly there to find it. A good example is the idea of bookmarks or the list of favourites (p. 107).
- Similarity is defined as "Finding information based on a previous example that is similar to the current need" (p.108).
Fidel also investigates four factors that shape the use of search strategies. These include: time - "how much time the actor has for search" and prior-knowledge needed for the strategy (p. 111). And the last two factors include cognitive processes - "how much thinking is required when using a strategy" and search in memory or how much of the person's memory is required for the use of particular strategy (p.111).
Page Author: Aleks Migorska