Search procedures revisited

Search Procedures reflects on a series of studies carried out over a four year period in the late 1970s. It was published at an interesting time for Information Retrieval. Written before Information Retrieval became synonymous with online information seeking it focuses on Information Retrieval within Public Libraries, then the major location for everyday information seeking. While many of his contemporaries focused on information seeking in academic or special library settings, Peter chose instead to focus a setting that was visited by a more diverse set of people with a broader range of information needs

User Models for Information Systems: Prospects and Problems

Expert systems attempt to model multiple aspects of human-computer interaction, including the reasoning of the human expert, the knowledge base, and characteristics and goals of the user. This paper focuses on models of the human user that are held by the system and utilized in interaction, with particular attention to information retrieval applications. User models may be classified along several dimensions, including static vs. dynamic, stated vs. inferred, and short-term vs. longterm models. The choice of the type of model will depend on a number of factors, including frequency of use, the relationship between the user and the system, the scope of the system, and the diversity of the user population. User models are most effective for well-defined tasks, domains, and user characteristics and goals. These user-system aspects tend not to be well defined in most information retrieval applications.published or submitted for publicatio

Music, movies and meaning: communication in film-markers' search for pre-existing music, and the implications for music information retrieval

While the use of music to accompany moving images is widespread, the information behaviour, communicative practice and decision making by creative professionals within this area of the music industry is an under-researched area. This investigation discusses the use of music in films and advertising focusing on communication and meaning of the music and introduces a reflexive communication model. The model is discussed in relation to interviews with a sample of music professionals who search for and use music for their work. Key factors in this process include stakeholders, briefs, product knowledge and relevance. Searching by both content and context is important, although the final decision when matching music to picture is partly intuitive and determined by a range of stakeholders

Searching with Tags: Do Tags Help Users Find Things?

This study examines the question of whether tags can be useful in the process of information retrieval. Participants searched a social bookmarking tool specialising in academic articles (CiteULike) and an online journal database (Pubmed). Participant actions were captured using screen capture software and they were asked to describe their search process. Users did make use of tags in their search process, as a guide to searching and as hyperlinks to potentially useful articles. However, users also made use of controlled vocabularies in the journal database to locate useful search terms and of links to related articles supplied by the database

Quo vadimus? The 21st Century and multimedia

The concept is related of computer driven multimedia to the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Program (STIP). Multimedia is defined here as computer integration and output of text, animation, audio, video, and graphics. Multimedia is the stage of computer based information that allows access to experience. The concepts are also drawn in of hypermedia, intermedia, interactive multimedia, hypertext, imaging, cyberspace, and virtual reality. Examples of these technology developments are given for NASA, private industry, and academia. Examples of concurrent technology developments and implementations are given to show how these technologies, along with multimedia, have put us at the threshold of the 21st century. The STI Program sees multimedia as an opportunity for revolutionizing the way STI is managed