17:610:530 Principles of Searching

Tefko Saracevic

Exercise 6

INTERVIEW - USER MODELING

This is a group exercise.

In this part of the course we turn toward interaction covering human-human interaction, particularly the mediation between you as information professionals and users. In the lecture on mediation (530 mediation.PPT) and the readings on interaction we dealt with interaction between librarians and users, covering, among others, what and how of the interview with a user. Now, we will put this to a practical test.

This assignment involves the process of user modeling:

1. your preparation for interviewing a user about his question. What questions will you ask the user? What clarifications? What may help you in gaining a better insight into user's problem, needs, desired results ...?
2. Interview itself.
3. After the interview preparation for the search. The search for this topic will be done in Exercise 9due as per schedule. (Exercise 9 is the last exercise). So save the results of the interview for Exercise 9.

I am the user and you are the information professional that will interview me in class. I provided you with a real question for you to analyze and then interview me in preparation for searching. I will wear a user hat, so you can recognize me as the user, not an instructor.

Assignment:

1. Examine the question below. Consult the lecture on mediation (530-mediation.PPT) and suggestions from any readings to determine categories of questions to be asked.
   
   
2. Get together with your group and analyze the question. Determine: What question to ask of me as a user?  What areas to clarify? What, if any, suggestions to make beforehand to me as a user to help me clarify or better diagnose my topic?
   Bring to class the notes on these questions and/or suggestions. (One set of notes per group). Hand in the notes (these are the deliverable). But keep a set for yourself, for recording my answers.
   
   
3. During the class session interview me as a group - we have about 11 groups or so (some merged, other decomposed since we started), thus there will be 11 or so interviews, but anybody in a group can ask questions. (I realize that in the interviews subsequent groups may have similar questions that I already answered for the previous group, but do not worry about that - we will skip the repeat questions, but you still make notes on ALL questions you may want to interview me. We will select the order of groups randomly).
   
   
4. You will use the results of the interview for Exercise 8 to construct a search strategy, do a search, and deliver the results. This is also a group exercise.

Question:

Title: Evaluation of digital libraries

I am working on a proposal and a follow-up paper dealing with evaluation of digital libraries, particularly as involving digital libraries in academic and research institutions, but in part also as involving the process in general, beyond an institutional framework.

I have written a general paper on the subject that can be found in RUL and on my Web site under Articles:

Saracevic, T. (2000). Digital Library Evaluation: Toward Evolution of Concepts. Library Trends, 49, (2) 350-369. Special issue on Evaluation of Digital Libraries.

I am interested to obtain information about two types of studies. First are studies that are specific to digital libraries, including related services, such as digital reference. These are studies that: 

• report evaluation approaches and data from digital library research, experiments or developments, as they related to specific institutions or domains or to research projects, such as done under Digital Library Initiatives;
• report on performance, impact or value of digital libraries, or any of their components and/or services;
• suggest digital library evaluation models or theories;
• critique or summarize digital library evaluation, performance, or impact (or lack of evaluation) in various studies.

Second are studies that are more general in nature, covering:

• proposals and issues of methodology for evaluation or study of digital libraries or any of its components or services; includes study of impact on differing populations or activities;
• metrics for digital libraries - i.e. suggestions for statistics, and indicators of performance;
• criteria for performance for digital libraries; criteria for impact or value;
•   suggestions for digital library models and theories in general;
• discussion or critiques of digital library performance or impact.

In other words, I am interested in specific studies and projects that involved evaluation of digital libraries and performance and impact statistics and at the same time I am also interested to cover theories, models, metrics, measures, and methodologies proposed or used for characterization of digital libraries and/or any of their components or services, in general.

I plan to apply for a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Service (http://www.imls.gov/) in the program National Leadership Grants for Libraries, Research and Demonstration, to develop digital library evaluation methods and measures, and apply them to RUL. This will be a joint SCILS and RUL proposal. Thus, I will use the results in preparation of the proposal, and in the review section of the proposal. Grants for 2002 are listed.

I also plan to write a follow-up article to the one that appeared in Library Trends in 2000, with an update and critical review of efforts done in this area over the last few years.

Such studies can be found in a variety of disciplines, including computer science, library and information science, and various domains where digital libraries were applied and developed.

A large source of funding for digital libraries in the US are Digital Library Initiatives under sponsorship of the National Science Foundation (NSF). NSF provides a list for projects in these initiatives. In Europe, a lot of work is being done under project Delos. My site D-Lib Edu has a list of these projects under Research at http://scils.rutgers.edu/~tefko/D_LibEdu_home.htm.