An ongoing thread in information retrieval research has been the exploration of user goals (or information needs, or problems) on information retrieval systems. It has been suggested that an understanding of goals and their role in the information retrieval interaction can provide insight into appropriate retrieval strategies, relevant documents, and general system design. This article reports on empirical findings concerning goals of users searching an OPAC at a northeastern United States university. These findings were generated during a large inductive and qualitative study of users' interactions with the OPAC. It was found that respondents came to the OPAC to search for a variety of course-or degree-related projects in which they were engaged. Respondent goals were not greatly modified during the course of these interactions.A set of situational elements associated with the respondent's goal was also identified. The implications of these findings for OPAC design and the training of informational professionals are discussed.

Social informatics (SI) refers to a multidisciplinary research field that examines the design, uses, and implications of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in ways that account for their interactions with institutional and cultural contexts. This Special Issue presents seven articles that illustrate the range and depth of research in SI. This essay outlines the concerns of SI researchers and briefly describe the articles that follow.

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Usability of Web sites has become an increasingly important area of research as Web sites proliferate and problems with use are noted. Generally, aspects of Web sites that have been investigated focus on such areas as overall design and navigation. The exploratory study reported on here investigates one specific component of a Web site—the index structure. By employing index usability metrics developed by Liddy and Jörgensen (1993; Jörgensen & Liddy, 1996) and modified to accommodate a hypertext environment, the study compared the effectiveness and efficiency of 20 subjects who used one existing index (the A–Z index on the FedStats Web site at http://www.fedstats.gov) and three experimental variants to complete five researcher‐generated tasks. User satisfaction with the indexes was also evaluated. The findings indicate that a hypertext index with multiple access points for each concept, all linked to the same resource, led to greater effectiveness and efficiency of retrieval on almost all measures. Satisfaction measures were more variable. The study offers insight into potential improvements in the design of Web‐based indexes and provides preliminary assessment of the validity of the measures employed.