Information Searching Theory and Practice

Throughout most of human history, people got the information they needed for their lives more or less automatically and unthinkingly--through people they talked with, and from their own life experiences. Today, we are inundated with information but often know little about how to find our way through the vast sea of recorded knowledge to get to what we really want and need. In the information sciences researchers have thought a great deal about information seeking, and have studied people in the grip of trying to satisfy an information need. Much has been learned about how to enable comfortable and fun information searching in human, paper, and digital environments. Professor Marcia Bates of UCLA's Department of Information Studies has collected fifteen of her major papers on information searching in theory and practice in this volume. The articles address many aspects of searching for information, including searching tactics and techniques, the "vocabulary problem" in online searching, the kinds of indexing terms to use in various contexts, the Bradford Distribution and its effects on searching in large databases, the true nature of browsing, and how to design computer interfaces for successful searching. For all the variety in types of information systems, the human being interacting with an information source is remarkably stable in psychology and behavior. These human traits and system features are explored in depth in this book. Bates' popular articles, "What is Browsing--Really?" and "The Design of Browsing and Berrypicking Techniques for the Online Search Interface," are included. This is Volume II of three containing selected works by Bates. The others are Information and the Information Professions (Vol. I) and Information Users and Information System Design (Vol. III).