Children's information retrieval behavior: A case analysis of an OPAC

Abstract

This article reports research that explored children's information retrieval behavior using an online public access catalog (OPAC) in an elementary school library. The study considers the impact of a variety of factors including user characteristics, the school setting, interface usability, and information access features on children's information retrieval success and breakdown. The study reports the overall patterns of children's behavior that influence success and breakdown in information retrieval as well as findings about the intentions, moves, plans, strategies, and search terms of children in grades one through six. IntroductionFrom the time of its first appearance, the online public access catalog (OPAC) has attracted attention as a research vehicle. The earliest research flowed from the excitement of the OPAC as a new tool for information access. Survey (Matthews, Lawrence, & Ferguson, 1983), transaction log (Tolle, 1983), and focus group methods (Markey, 1983) were employed to provide a foundational database of users and nonusers of OPACs and their likes, dislikes, and desires for future enhancements (Cochrane & Markey, 1985;Matthews, 1986). This early research emphasized the OPAC's potential to solve problems of information access and retrieval. The research indicated that the computer as an information retrieval tool solved some problems (e.g., keyword access to individual terms in author, title, and subject heading fields), created others (e.g., inability to browse subjects, titles, and authors), and left some untouched (e.g., the provision of subject headings in the catalog that correspond to the language of users). Some problems have been attacked (e.g., some OPACs have a browsing capability for subject headings); many issues remain for resolution (Hildreth, 1989). Received August 17, 1992; revised November 16, 1992; accepted December 3, 1992. 0 1993 The stream of research involving an OPAC continues because: (1) so many of the issues and problems in information studies come together in an OPAC, and (2) research employing an OPAC offers a research environment that is readily available and convenient for study and whose interface or retrieval mechanisms can be relatively easily adapted for test purposes. So user behavior, human-computer interfaces, information retrieval mechanisms, and record design approaches continue to be studied or tested using the vehicle of the OPAC (Yee, 1991). Surveys and transaction logs remain the most frequently employed discovery methods.The numerous studies that have focused on individual elements of an OPAC have described the benefits and drawbacks of computer-based information retrieval systems. Yet there is something in the focus on individual elements that detracts from an understanding of how users, hardware, software, information retrieval mechanisms, record contents, cataloging conventions, tasks, and working contexts all fit together to support the solution of information retrieval problems.When taken together, these views provide a much different perspective...

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