“Searching for Inspiration”: User Needs and Search Architecture in Europeana Collections

摘要

Drawing upon research and current development work atrnEuropeana, this paper discusses search functionality in thernCultural Heritage sector, focusing in particular on thernquestion of ‘inspiration-oriented’ search, in which usersrnseek out previously-unknown items to serve as creativernstimulus. Inspiration-oriented search is identified as arnvariant of the more widely-studied problem of serendipitousrnretrieval, and defined as an information-seeking behavior inrnwhich users consciously search for items that are related tornknown items in ways that are recognizable once seen, butrnthat are nevertheless unpredictable at search-time. Variousrnstrategies for the maximization of both the recognisabilityrnand unpredictability of related items are then described,rnincluding user-interface and user-experience changes andrnthe reconceptualization of datastores as knowledge graphs.rnDirections for further research are then outlined –rnincluding, most importantly, possible metrics forrninspiration-oriented search and their potential for use inrnmachine-learning ranking frameworks.