Characteristics and use of personal indexes maintained by scientists and engineers in one university

1991

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

As electronic text files increase in number and diversity, the problem of devising a more effective information retrieval interface grows more important.Future designs may draw upon cognitive theories of categorization and metaphor to understand how users interact with text-both paper and electronic. Relevant literature in cognitive psychology and information science suggests the importance of the user's physical environment in thinking about abstract entities, such as categories of documents. Empirical studies have established a basis for understanding how we think about, file, remember, and locate text. Results from a study of 20 historians-an exemplary group in terms of their close studies of texts and the broad scope of their inquiriesimply the importance of metaphors for storage and retrieval of documents. The study found that metaphors and subjective categories were frequently applied to documents collected and created by these scholars. Two physical factors-spatial configuration and document form-were often considered before topic in determining document storage locations in the office. Developers of information systems should consider qualitative aspects of cognition in their designs. System developers might also consider segmenting the audience for computer interfaces, as well as designing generic tools that apply to all users.

Section: Studies Of Document Categorizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual organization and retrieval of text by historians: The role of memory and metaphor

1991

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

“…Studies of individual methods of organizing information have shown wide variation among groups such as scientists and engineers [26] and office workers [27].…”

Section: User Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing an information retrieval interface based on user characteristics

Borgman

Proceedings of the 8th Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval - SIGIR

Meadow

1985

“…The notable examples include [JAHODA66] and [SOPER76]. Studies such as these used survey techniques to examine personal collections and indices, focusing on who!…”

Section: How Do They Do It Effectively?mentioning

confidence: 99%

How do the experts do it? The use of ethnographic methods as an aid to understanding the cognitive processing and retrieval of large bodies of text

Proceedings of the 11th Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval - SIGIR

1988

This paper explores an important problem in information retrieval: that of rapidly increasing amounts of full-text storage that is difficult to file and retrieve effectively. The author suggests that a possible avenue for improving full-text retrieval would include in-depth studies of the ways in which individual users cope with large amounts of written information. stored chiefly on paper in their offices. Rclcvant literature in cognitive psychology is reviewed and some recent and continuing studies are described that have used anthropological methods to approach this problem. It is argued that historians arc a good group to study, due to their reliance on the examination and processing of texts, and the broad scope of their inquiries. Examinations of the ways in which this one group of information workers categorize documents could lcad us to a better understanding of human problems in processing and retrieving textual information.