Revealing Interdisciplinarity in Nanoscience and Technology Queries: A Transaction Log Analysis Approach

摘要

The study reported here investigated the search behaviour patterns of nanoscience and nanotechnology searchers as revealed by transaction log analysis of the NANOnetBASE electronic book digital library. This paper examines the patterns and strategies of nano searchers' query formulation and reformulation, then explores the extent of interdisciplinarity in search queries using the INSPEC and Compendex thesauri. The results show certain query formulation patterns associated with searching in an emerging and interdisciplinary area of nanotechnology such as: the use of multiword and compound query terms, extensive use of search terms beginning with the prefix "nano," hyphenated terms, spelling variations, a large number of query reformulations, and the use of acronyms. The results also indicate that 62% of the unique top terms resulting from mapping users' query terms to the INSPEC Classification codes represented two or more disciplines, specifically terms associated with the Classification code "A" representing "physics." The results have implications for information organization and representation, user interface design and federated searching in digital libraries and multi-subject databases.