Information-Seeking Behaviors of Computer Scientists:Challenges for Electronic Literature Search Tools

摘要

Since the recent emergence of electronic literature resources,researchers have begun to adopt new informationseekingpractices. The purpose of this research is to investigatethe information needs and searching behaviors ofresearchers, and their implications for electronic literaturesearch tools. We conducted mixed-method case studiesinvolving interviews, diary logs, and observations of computerscientists followed by a web-based survey to validateour findings. The results show that computer science researchershave the following main purposes for seekinginformation: keeping up to date, exploring new topics, reviewingliterature, collaborating, preparing lectures, andrecommending material for students. We found that keepingup to date with research is the most frequent purposeand exploring unfamiliar research areas is the most difficult.Furthermore, we found that literature searching is acollaborative process and, depending on the search purpose,different information sources and navigation strategiesare used. On the basis of these findings we discuss sixdesign challenges for literature search tools, which are:providing support for keeping up to date with research,exploring unfamiliar topics, browsing user history, collaboratingand sharing, performing a federated search that goesbeyond scholarly research, and sorting and navigating theresults.