Ingwersen, Peter

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Copenhagen University Research Information System

u n i ve r s i t y  o f  co pe n h ag e n  Københavns UniversitetInteractive Information Seeking, Behaviour and Retrieval. Edited by Ian Ruthven andDiane Kelly. London: Facet Publishing, 2011. 296 pp. $ 89.95 (paperback). (ISBN: 978-1-85604-707-4)Ingwersen, PeterPublished in:Journal of the American Society for Information Science and TechnologyPublication date:2012Document versionEarly version, also known as pre-printCitation for published version (APA):Ingwersen, P. (2012). Interactive Information Seeking, Behaviour and Retrieval. Edited by Ian Ruthven andDiane Kelly. London: Facet Publishing, 2011. 296 pp. $ 89.95 (paperback). (ISBN: 978-1-85604-707-4). Journalof the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(10), 2122-2125.Download date: 02. Feb. 2020Book ReviewInteractive Information Seeking, Behaviour andRetrieval. Edited by Ian Ruthven and Diane Kelly. London:Facet Publishing, 2011. 296 pp. $ 89.95 (paperback). (ISBN:978-1-85604-707-4)This book is a must if one is a student or researcher newto information science and, in particular, to informationretrieval (IR) interaction and multimedia research. It will beespecially valuable to those interested in human factors ofIR in a social search context combined with informationrepresentation, access and interaction techniques, interfaceand evaluation methodology issues, and Web-based or mul-timedia information behavior and retrieval interaction.It is edited by two internationally known representativesof the established generation of researchers: Associate Pro-fessor Diane Kelly, University of North Carolina, ChapelHill, and Professor Ian Ruthven, University of Strathclyde,Scotland. They have invited an international crowd of 17fellow highly experienced senior and younger researchersfrom academia and the information industry to contribute tothis textbook collection of 13 chapters on recent advances oninformation–interaction themes.1In scope, the book is primarily oriented toward studentsand researchers of information science; but it indeed hasrelevance for, and bearing upon, computer science and, inparticular, students of human–computer interaction who wishto be introduced to the umbrella of interactive IR themes.Such issues are scarcely dealt with in TREC and traditionalIR contexts even though Web IR necessarily involves inter-action. As a topic, information-interaction research is alsoincreasingly important to the online Web search industry.Clearly, information–interaction studies bridgelaboratory-based IR and user-centered information (behav-ior) studies. It is fair to say that this book nicely supplementsthe Ingwersen and Järvelin (2005) research monograph onintegration of information seeking and IR in context (2005)by adding interface, Web IR, social searching, and multime-dia perspectives to the R&D agenda for systems design in arelevant and insightful way. Further, it connects indirectly tothe two central biennial conferences, Information Seeking inContext (ISIC) and Information Interaction in Context(IIiX), where several of the authors frequently publish.The initial four chapters address human informationbehavior and seeking as well as task-based IR interaction,and how to carry out research on such issues. The followingtwo chapters consider information representation or archi-tecture in a broader sense: the system’s organization ofinformation contents and the four families of commonretrieval models (Boolean, probabilistic, vector space, andlanguage models, labeled access models). Chapter 7 concen-trates on search system and user-centered evaluation andrelates to the earlier methodological data collection andanalysis chapter. The book then moves into the center ofinteraction with two chapters: interface issues and interac-tive techniques. The former provides an extensive overviewof interface types for retrieval and how they may supportsearching. The latter chapter shows how one can supportinformation interaction by providing helpful tools and bylearning about individual searchers’ interaction behavior.This serves as a kind of “personalization,” which is contin-ued in the ensuing chapter on Web IR, ranking methods, andpersonalization issues. Here, we are meeting the challengesof Web-based IR interaction, for which solutions requirenew lines of attack. This chapter goes well with the next, on“recommendation, collaboration and social search.” Thiscontribution considers the challenges to be met in researchon social search behavior, and how knowledge of suchbehavior may support other searchers’ seeking processes, asa kind of social personalization. The last two chapters con-centrate on multimedia information interaction (i.e., userbehavior, interfaces, interaction, and representation as wellas access models in relation to nontextual data such as Flikr,YouTube, and similar multimedia providers such as onlinemuseums).The foreword by Tefko Saracevic provides an intelligentand interesting perspective on the history of studies of infor-mation, information behavior, information seeking, and IRinteraction. This novel, wider context for events alsoincludes quantitative studies of information behavior such asbibliometrics and webometrics.The preface is remarkably short. In my opinion, thereader would appreciate a more extensive consideration,perhaps in the form of a more comprehensive introductionwith respect to the combination and overlap of (the researchon) information behavior, information seeking, IR interac-tion, and multimedia. Notwithstanding, Kelly and Ruthvenintroduce the motivation for the generation of the book, itsstructure, and the individual chapters in a stringent, purpose-ful, and on-point.1Throughout this review, I provide very brief biographical data aboutthe young contributors who as yet may be unfamiliar to some readers.© 2012 ASIS&TJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 63(10):2122–2125, 2012The initial chapter, “Interactive Information Retrieval:History and Background,” is by Colleen Cool, Professor atQueens College of the City University of New York, andNick Belkin, Rutgers University. In a way, this chapterserves as the introduction to the book, although it doesnot address multimedia issues. The analyses are highlyrelevant and well argued. I appreciated the references tothe original online information era (mid-1970s–mid-1990s), which saw a great deal of interaction research aswell as theoretical development. Of course, the findingswere grounded in the user-segments, computer andnetwork technology, and bibliographic/online public accesscatalog systems approaches of that period—nevertheless,they are relevant to present-day Web searching.Chapter 2, “Information Behavior and Seeking,” is byProfessor Peiling Wang, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.The chapter begins with extensive coverage of modelsdealing with information behavior and information search-ing, ranging from task-based and everyday informationseeking to uncertainty and emotional aspects. It thenanalyzes a variety of IR interaction models and approaches,from Belkin’s ASK model through Ingwersen’s cognitivemodel and Marchionini’s process model to Xie’s recentsituational model of interaction. The chapter ends with ananalysis of approaches to, and models of, relevance, assess-ments, and criteria (e.g., the Vakkari and Hakala model).This succinct modus operandi nicely links models to rel-evant empirical evidence, according to their function.Elaine Toms, Professor at Sheffield University, UnitedKingdom (formerly at Dalhousie University, Canada), dis-cusses “Task-Based Information Searching and Retrieval” inchapter 3. During recent decades, work and search taskshave become the foci for research because they are seen asthe triggers of information need, request, and hence, query.The task forms part of the situational context of the retrievalevent. The chapter is highly recommended for its expositionof the anatomy and differences between work and searchtask, the variety of classifications of tasks applied to IR, andthe (historic) relationships between task as vehicle andobject for research. Toms succeeds in combining a concisereview of useful empirical and theoretical research withgenuine, new scientific insight into the matter.The fourth chapter, “Approaches to Investigating Infor-mation Interaction and Behavior,” by Professor Raya Fidel,University of Washington, Seattle, deals with retrieval andseeking interaction. It initially concentrates briefly on epis-temological stance, research setting, level of control, andnature of experimentation. Central strengths and weak-nesses are outlined as to kinds of experiments and data-collection instruments, and the contribution ends withimplications of information studies for research andsystems design. The chapter is relatively brief and couldhave been more informative with respect to analyses ofrelevant research-design frameworks for empirical infor-mation studies.The next section of the book deals with the systemsside. The first chapter, “Information Representation,” is byAssistant Professor Mark D. Smucker, University of Water-loo, Canada, who belongs to the young generation of IRresearchers, and received his PhD from the University ofMassachusetts, Amherst in 2008. Essentially, this chapterconsiders text representation as well as manual and auto-matic indexing approaches also in an historical sense: Itexemplifies central processes such as tokenization, confla-tion and stemming, and term weights. Although fairly short,the explanations are well done didactically and will suitundergraduate students.Edie Rasmussen, Professor at University of BritishColumbia, Canada, is responsible for chapter 6, “AccessModels.” Her contribution “goes under the hood” of thesearch vehicle into the retrieval engine itself. Rasmussendefines and discusses the four formal fundamental IR modelfamilies: Boolean logic models; the vector space model,including cosine formula; probabilistic models; and lan-guage models. Boolean logic also is discussed in relation tousers’ conceptions of it, and the other mathematically basedmodels are nicely defined through worked examples. I likedin particular the clear and simplistic explanation for lan-guage model smoothing and relevance feedback. Studentsnew to IR and information science would profit tremen-dously from this chapter.Chapter 7, “Evaluation,” is by Professor Kalervo Järve-lin, Tampere University, Finland. The chapter is well struc-tured in five subsections dealing with the evaluationlandscape, test collection-based IR evaluation, user-centered evaluation, operational IR system evaluation, andtrends and challenges. It provides both a clear understand-ing of the issues through well-put examples (e.g., in themetrics section) and a review of the current situation andchallenges to IR evaluation. The data protocol and evalu-ation metrics to apply in user-oriented and operationalsystem evaluations is a very well-presented section. Thechapter makes a strong case and constitutes the centralcore of the book, complementing the “Access Model”chapter very well.Chapter 8, “Interfaces for Information Retrieval,” isby Lecturer Max Wilson, Swansea University, UnitedKingdom, who received his PhD in 2009 from the Univer-sity of Southampton. It is a comprehensive analysis ofsearch user interface (SUI) designs and development thatincludes an informative, but brief, history of SUI for IR. Thissection leads up to modern SUIs that are categorized accord-ing to input, control, and informational (output or presenta-tion) features. Input features dealt with include the searchbox, query by example, or adding (social) metadata; thecontrol category encompasses interactive query changes,correction, sorting, or filtering features. The informationalSUIs are mainly about visualization of output and relevancein various ways, organized in 2D or 3D. The chapter iswell illustrated with appropriate interface shots of sufficientresolution to allow for observation of crucial details. Notmuch research has been done globally on SUIs in IRrecently; therefore I find this contribution highly relevantand stimulating.JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY—October 2012 2123DOI: 10.1002/asiThe following chapter, “Interactive Techniques,” iswritten by Senior Researcher Ryen White, of the Context,Learning and User Experience for Search (CLUES) group,Microsoft Research, Redmond, Washington. His PhD fromGlasgow University, Scotland in 2004 received the BritishComputer Society’s Distinguished Dissertation Award inthe United Kingdom in 2005. This chapter connects easilyto the previous SUI chapter by analyzing R&D that maysupport IR interaction. One major theme is relevance feed-back (RF) techniques, divided into explicit and implicitRF. These are reviewed and considered in relation tosupport of query generation and interactive modification(expansion or enhancement). White also discusses supportof decision making as a challenge beyond these traditionalmechanisms.Jaime Teevan and Susan Dumais are responsible forchapter 10, “Web Retrieval, Ranking and Personalization.”Both are affiliated with Microsoft Research, Redmond,Washington, with Teevan serving as Senior Researcher andDumais as Principal Researcher and Manager of CLUES.Teevan received her PhD from MIT in 2007. I believe it isa good idea to provide special treatment to the Web issuesof IR owing to its difference from more traditional (text-based) IR. Link structure and the collaborative, network-based, and truly interactive nature of the Internet (and itssubset, the Web, in particular) make it quite challengingfrom an information–interaction perspective. The authorstake up this challenge of the standard IR techniques andapproaches outlined in previous chapters that obviouslyhave informed the design of Web search engines. Teevanand Dumais argue that the unique character of the Weband the diversity of its user population require specializedsolutions. The authors provide a background for under-standing the challenges and analyze briefly how peopleinteract with Web results, leading to features of personal-ization. Evaluation issues of (interactive) Web IR are verybriefly considered, as are issues to be met in the future ofWeb search. Dynamic personalization, social searching,and mobile retrieval are seen as crucial future issues ofconcern. The chapter is well written for students, but is toobrief in my opinion. It may serve to highlight the potentialfor further exploration into the world of Web retrievalinteraction.The social component is continued in the next chapter,“Recommendation, Collaboration and Social Search,” byDavid Nichols, Senior Lecturer at the University ofWaikato, New Zealand and Michael Twidale, Professorat the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Allthree themes are fairly recent on the IR research agendaand are heavily connected to the interactive Web environ-ment. This chapter begins with a concise history of infor-mation access with emphasis on social and cooperativeinteractions. Then the authors take the reader into therealm of recommendation (systems), social search, andinterfaces to support collaboration between informationseekers. The chapter concludes with considerationsabout how design of interactive information systems isinfluenced by social elements. Recommendation (systems)are exemplified by Amazon.com as a case study, andviewed from the perspectives of collaborative filteringas well as implicit and explicit rating. Interfaces for col-laboration and issues of systems design are analyzed verybriefly.The last two chapters discuss “Multimedia: Behavior,Interfaces and Interaction and “Multimedia: InformationRepresentation and Access.” Chapter 12 is written byHaiming Liu, Suzanne Little, and Stefan Rüger; SuzanneLittle, Evan Brown, and Stefan Rüger are responsible forchapter 13. Suzanne Little is Researcher at the KnowledgeMedia Institute of the Open University, United Kingdom,and received her PhD from the University of Queensland,Australia, in 2006. Haiming Liu is Lecturer at the Univer-sity of Bedfordshire, United Kingdom, and received herPhD in 2010 from the Open University. Stefan Rüger isProfessor at the Knowledge Media Institute of the OpenUniversity, and Evan Brown is a PhD student at the samelocation.The two chapters form a kind of mini-booklet within thelarger book by displaying the same structure mirrored intheir titles. Initially, chapter 12 analyzes interaction modelsand interfaces that are applied to multimedia (MM) IR. Thisconnects with Wang’s chapter on information seeking andbehavior and Wilson’s interface chapter, albeit without anyexplicit links. Campbell’s ostensive model for imageretrieval is described, as are other factor-based and query-by-example search interfaces. Implicit as well as explicit RFis touched upon, indirectly relating to White’s chapter.Information-seeking behavior in relation to MM is brieflyintroduced, including exploratory searching and informationforaging theory.The last chapter on MM information representation andaccess models divides MM document representations intometadata-driven, “piggy-back” text and automatic annota-tion, and content-based representation and retrieval. Thepiggy-back method refers to applying textual support (e.g.,as context) to the MM object. The chapter gives relevantexamples of feature-based representations using color,shape, audio, video, and so on. How to evaluate MMretrieval systems is not dealt with.It is safe to say that the book displays many dif-ferent perspectives on interface design and use in a greatvariety of IR contexts. Search interface issues pop up inalmost all chapters. User-centered as well as search-system-related evaluation methodologies are well analyzedand discussed. However, evaluation of search user inter-faces and multimedia retrieval systems do not formpart of the book, neither in the relevant chapters on thetopics nor in the evaluation chapter. A chapter or majorsection on usability measures would have strengthened thework.The bibliography is comprehensive, and the index iswell constructed, but—as with all indexes—the searchermust know the entry term in order to find something. Aminor point thus concerns the table of contents. The2124 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY—October 2012DOI: 10.1002/asieditors or publisher ought to have elaborated it more bydisplaying subsections of the chapters, to give an immedi-ate idea and overview of what to expect/obtain fromreading or using the book.This book is definitely needed and provides a valuableintroduction to central theoretical perspectives, models, andmethodologies paired with experiments and field investiga-tions from the core specialties involved in information inter-action. In my opinion, the most instructive and informedchapters are those considering the historical background ofinformation interaction; conceptual models of informationbehavior, seeking and interactive retrieval; task-based IR;formal access models; MM representation, interfaces andinteraction techniques; and, foremost, the evaluationchapter.ReferencesIngwersen, P., & Järvelin, K. (2005). The turn: Integration of informationseeking and information retrieval in context. Berlin, Germany: Springer.Peter IngwersenRoyal School of Library and Information Science,Birketinget 6,DK 2300 Copenhagen S,Denmark; andOslo University College,St. Olavs Plass,0130 Oslo,NorwayPublished online 9 July 2012 in Wiley Online Library(wileyonlinelibrary.com).DOI: 10.1002/asi.22718JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY—October 2012 2125DOI: 10.1002/asi

Interactive Information Seeking, Behaviour and Retrieval. Edited by Ian Ruthven and Diane Kelly. London: Facet Publishing, 2011. 296 pp. $ 89.95 (paperback). (ISBN: 978-1-85604-707-4)

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Interactive Information Seeking, Behaviour and Retrieval. Edited by Ian Ruthven and Diane Kelly. London: Facet Publishing, 2011. 296 pp. $ 89.95 (paperback). (ISBN: 978-1-85604-707-4)

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