Meredith McGovern
INFO 510
Annotated Bibliography
Scope Note
The following bibliography is focused on the information seeking behavior of humanities scholars. I chose this particular user group based on my own interest in the subjects and materials that are included within the humanities. However, the articles and research included are not limited to only experienced scholars in the humanities; specific fields within the humanities are also included in articles on literary scholars and historians. There is also discussion of the information seeking behavior graduate students and even something on undergraduates studying the humanities. All of the articles fall within a twelve year range, with the earliest published in 1994 and the most recent in 2006. Considering their dates of publication, it only seems appropriate that the most research being done on the information seeking behaviors of humanities scholars focuses on the use of the Internet and electronic resources. The articles selected not only taught me something about how humanities scholars seek out and retrieve information but how some of the research skills I learned as an undergraduate studying American Studies (an interdisciplinary field often considered part of the humanities) were shaped on the information seeking skills of humanities scholars as a whole.
Bibliography
Barrett, A. (2005). The information-seeking habits of graduate student researchers in the humanities. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 31(4), 324-331.
This paper summarizes an exploratory research study on the information-seeking habits of graduate student researchers in the humanities. In-depth interviews with a small sample of humanities graduate students were used to explore to what extent humanities graduate students might constitute a user group distinct from faculty and undergraduate models.
Database: LISTA
Method of Searching: keyword search
Search Strategy: I searched “information seeking and humanities” in the basic keyword search.
Comments: This article discusses the ways in which the information seeking behavior of humanities graduate students differs from their undergraduate and scholarly peers. While I am looking at the information seeking behavior of those in the humanities as a whole, the specificity of this article shows how those not as experienced in the field find their information. Due to their age and familiarity with electronic resources, graduate students are just as likely to use them as their undergraduate peers. They also tend to begin their research and information seeking with a semblance of an idea that grows and manifests itself into a larger idea once they have began to seek out information.
Bates, M., Siegfried, S., & Wilde, D. (1995). Research practices of humanities
scholars in an online environment: The Getty online searching project report no. 3. Library and Information Science Research, 17, 5-40.
Use of online databases by humanities scholars searching as end users was monitored in a 2-year project conducted by the Getty Art History Information Program. Visiting Scholars at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities in Santa Monica, California, were offered the opportunity to do unlimited subsidized searching of DIALOG databases. This third report from the project presents results of interviews conducted with the scholars regarding their experiences with searching, the role the searching took in their broader research activities, and their attitudes about the future of online searching in the humanities. Scholars found the experience stimulating and novel, with comments ranging from its “addictive” properties to a “Sorcerer's Apprentice” quality to complaints about the “industrialization of scholarship.” Generally, the scholars saw DIALOG searching as supplementing their usual research methods, and not changing them in a fundamental way. Online searching was seen as particularly useful for interdisciplinary research, and as possibly setting a new standard for the extent of literature that should be reviewed. Identified problems were about equally divided between difficulties with the search interface and lack of desired types of resources. All foresaw online searching being used in the future by arts and humanities scholars.
Database:DIALOG (ERIC)
Method of Searching:author search
Search Strategy:ss au=bates, m?
Comments: Part of a longer series, this article focuses on interviews with various humanities scholars about the role of online searching, with a focus on the use of DIALOG. I chose it because it provides numerous examples of how humanities scholars do their research and also, the problems and pitfalls they encounter. The respondents appreciated and enjoyed all the freedom and information DIALOG provides but they also faced issues with the interface, search commands, and other administrative-type issues of the system. Also, I found the information in this 12 year old article fascinating, because of the fact so much was dedicated to the future of online searching and its impact on research (such as the respondents claiming online research will have “at least some impact” on the future of research).
Blandford, A., Buchanan, G., Cunningham, S., Rimmer, J., & Warwick, C. (2005). Information seeking by humanities scholars. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 3652/2005, 218-229.
This paper investigates the information seeking of humanities academics and scholars using digital libraries. It furthers existing work by updating our knowledge of the information seeking techniques used by humanities scholars, where the current work predates the wide availability of the Internet. We also report some of the patterns observed in query and term usage by humanities scholars, and relate this to the patterns they report in their own information seeking and the problems that they encounter. This insight is used to reveal the current gap between the skills of information seekers and the technologies that they use. Searches for ‘discipline terms’ prove to be particularly problematic.
Database:DIALOG (INSPEC)
Method of Searching:keyword search
Search Strategy:ss (information seeking) and (humanities)
Comments: I chose this article because of its focus on digital libraries. It correlates attitudes towards and experience with digital libraries with the different types of searches the participants did; the more frequent and comfortable the user, the more advanced and complex the search. The authors acknowledge early on that humanities scholars are traditionally people not trained in computer literacy, who focus on more on the abstract than the technical. It also examines the use of chaining by humanities scholars, an often-used skill that requires using already known resources to find new and unknown ones.
Buchanan, N., & Hughes, C. (2001). Use of electronic monographs in the humanities and social sciences. Library Hi Tech, 19(4), 368-375.
This article provides preliminary information about patterns of access and use of a collection of 35,000 electronic scholarly monographs in the humanities and social sciences provided by a commercial online library collection, QuestiaSM. Search logs and page view logs were analyzed as to the characteristics of the search queries and browsing within titles. Major findings include patterns of simple search queries and significant access to a surprising breadth of titles.
Database:Emerald Fulltext
Method of Searching:keyword search
Search Strategy:I searched “information and humanities” in the Quick Search on the homepage.
Comments: This article examines the use of Questia, an online library of monographs for use in the humanities and social sciences and the growing number of computer novices moving towards use of digital full-text databases. I chose it due to the fact it explicitly states the different ways that the users searched the database, from specific examples to the various types of searching used (such as searching for certain works using the “title by author” format and the use of articles like “an” in search formats). History and literature, two subjects within the humanities, are the most used and studied monographs in Questia. Also, Questia is primarily used by undergraduates, a branch of humanities scholars not looked at in any other article in this bibliography.
Delgadillo, R., & Lynch, B. (1999). Future historians: Their quest for information. College and Research Libraries, 60(3), 245-259.
A study investigated the way in which history graduate students seek information and use the university library to gather information. A total of 15 full-time graduate students of history at UCLA participated and were divided into three groups based on their years spent in the graduate history program. Results showed that the participants regarded themselves as emerging scholars in a field of inquiry that is easier to write about than to define, that the participants were all regular library users, that the use of primary and secondary source materials was consistent among the three student groups, and that all participants were generally positive about computers and electronic technology even though interest and applications were limited. Discussion of the results is provided.
Database:Library Literature and Information Science Full Text: Wilson Omnifile
Method of Searching:keyword search
Search Strategy:I searched “information seeking” and “historians” in the Basic Search.
Comments: Delagadillo and Lynch’s findings are based on their research of history graduate students at UCLA and how their information seeking behavior differs from that of more established scholars in the field. I found this article to be essential to this bibliography because the results show just how important library and reference use are to emerging scholars in a humanities field. The authors also state that previous studies have not been done in the modern age of information seeking, where a majority of research is done through online sources, and their findings realized the need for not only secondary electronic sources but also primary sources in the field as well.
Duff, W., & Johnson, C. (2002). Accidentally found on purpose: Information-seeking behavior of historians in archives. The Library Quarterly, 72(4), 472-500.
This article reports on a qualitative research study of the information-seeking behavior of historians. Based on semistructured interviews with ten midcareer historians, it investigates how they locate primary sources, carry out their research, and use archival material. The study identified four different types of information-seeking activities, including (1) orienting oneself to archives, finding aids, sources, or a collection; (2) seeking known material; (3) building contextual knowledge; and (4) identifying relevant material.
Database: DIALOG (ERIC)
Method of Searching:keyword search
Search Strategy: ss (information seeking) and (histor?)
Comments: This article was chosen because it looks at how a certain group within the humanities utilizes archives during their information seeking process. The importance of finding aids, both printed and online, in understanding and navigating archives is stressed because the size and depth of archives is quite daunting. When historians working in the archives cannot find the answers to their questions, they must reinvent their questions and attempt to form new ideas in order to find what they are searching for. The problems and advantages of using archives in research are emphasized in Duff and Johnson’s article.
East, J. (2006). Subject retrieval of scholarly monographs via electronic databases. Journal of Documentation, 62(5), 597-605.
Scholarly monographs are a major information resource in the humanities. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of abstracting and indexing (A&I) databases and library catalogues (OPACs) for subject retrieval of these monographs. A sample of monographs in philosophy was checked in the Philosopher's Index database and in library OPACs to establish how many subject terms were assigned per page of text. The results highlighted the inadequate indexing of monographs in these databases. Various methods of improving subject access are discussed, including enriched subject content of database records. The search potential of full-text databases is examined, with specific reference to two such databases, Oxford Scholarship Online and JSTOR. It is suggested that current and planned digitization projects need to incorporate improved search facilities, either by automatic generation of subject-rich document surrogates, or by the incorporation of author-generated metadata. This paper clarifies the current problems related to subject retrieval of scholarly monographs at a time when the launch of major digitization projects calls for urgent attention to this issue.
Database:Emerald Fulltext
Method of Searching:browsing
Search Strategy:I searched information seeking and humanities in Quick Search.
Comments: East’s research deals with the effect of mislabeled and inadequate descriptors in databases and monographs. Without correct and ample descriptors and abstracts, these research tools have less of an effect on the information seeking skills of the humanities scholars using them. I chose this article because it discusses one of the biggest problems in information seeking for humanities scholars. Although much progress has been made in regards to electronic material and the transfer of printed materials, the problems facing scholars doing research are not always observed and not only does East discuss how these problems affect information seeking but also how they can be solved in order to create a better searching environment.
Ellis, D., & Oldman, H. (2005). The English literature researcher in the age of the Internet . Journal of Information Science, 31, 29-36.
This study explores the extent to which the information seeking behaviour of researchers active in the field of English Literature in the universities of the UK and the wider world has changed as a result of the developing electronic information revolution. It deals with the researchers’ attitudes towards the Internet and examines their position with regard to utilizing the Internet as a publication outlet. The different types of electronic information sources for English literature are identified and the experiences of researchers using them explored. Finally, the study examines researcher attitudes towards electronic publication and to plans for a `virtual library’. The article concludes with recommendations for further study of the use of electronic resources in relation to information literacy and browsing and other facilities for subject access on the Internet.
Database:DIALOG (Social SciSearch)
Method of Searching:keyword search
Search Strategy:ss information seeking and humanities
Comments: This is a United Kingdom based study that looks at the role of the Internet and electronic resources in the information seeking behavior of English literary scholars. While electronic journals are becoming the norm within the field, they are not always looked upon highly by traditional scholars. Unlike some of the other articles included, Ellis and Oldman’s research appears to go against the idea of electronic resources as the future of humanities information seeking. Their respondents looked upon electronic journals as informal and found online databases to be a nice starting point but not somewhere that a scholar would base the majority of their research upon. That is the reason that I chose this article; it contains a more conservative view of information seeking that accepts and uses electronic materials but would much rather be in the library stacks doing research.
Ford, N., & Foster, A. (2003). Serendipity and information seeking: An empirical study. Journal of Documentation, 59(3), 321-340.
“Serendipity” has both a classical origin in literature and a more modern manifestation where it is found in the descriptions of the problem solving and knowledge acquisition of humanities and science scholars. Studies of information retrieval and information seeking have also discussed the utility of the notion of serendipity. Some have implied that it may be stimulated, or that certain people may “encounter” serendipitous information more than others. All to some extent accept the classical definition of serendipity as a “fortuitous” accident. The analysis presented here is part of a larger study concerning the information-seeking behaviour of interdisciplinary scholars. This paper considers the nature of serendipity in information-seeking contexts, and reinterprets the notion of serendipity as a phenomenon arising from both conditions and strategies – as both a purposive and a non-purposive component of information seeking and related knowledge acquisition.
Database:Emerald Fulltext
Method of Searching:browsing
Search Strategy: I searched “information seeking and humanities and user studies” in the Quick Search field on the homepage.
Comments: I selected this article because it presents a phenomenon within the information seeking behavior of humanities scholars. It discusses the role of serendipity on information retrieval for humanities and science scholars. It offers examples and tables, as well as reasons why the idea of serendipity has been overlooked in past user studies. Not only does it give insight into how humanities scholars search for information, it made me realize how often serendipity assisted me in my own previous research. Humanities scholars are a group that benefits from serendipitous information retrieval highly due to the vast and often interdisciplinary sources of information.
Maula, H., & Talja, S. (2003). Reasons for the use and non-use of electronic journals and databases: A domain analytic study in four scholarly disciplines . Journal of Documentation, 59(6), 673-691.
Previous research has shown that there are major differences in the search methods used in different disciplines, and that the use of electronic journals and databases likewise varies according to domain. Previous studies have not, however, explored whether, or how, this variation is possibly related to factors such as domain size, the degree of scatter in a domain or domain-specific relevance criteria. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the development of a domain analytic approach for explaining the use and non-use of e-journals and databases. We identify and define factors to account for disciplinary differences in e-journal use, outline hypotheses to be tested more rigorously in future research, and test them initially on a limited data set. The empirical data was gathered as a part of a wider qualitative study exploring scholars' use of networked resources in four different disciplines: nursing science, literature/cultural studies, history and ecological environmental science. The findings suggest that e-journals and databases are likely to be used most heavily in fields in which directed searching is the dominant search method and topical relevance the primary relevance type, and less in fields in which browsing and chaining are the dominant search methods and paradigmatic relevance the primary relevance type. The findings also support the Bates hypothesis that domain size has an important impact on the search methods used.