Given the interest in the search sessions at MW2008, and the follow-up discussion on Seb's, Nate's, and Brian's blogs, i though it would be useful to summarize a bit of the reading i've been doing lately for the phd + steve.museum research.

Directly relevant, is a longitudinal meta-study of the end-user search literature by Karen Markey, published in two parts in mid-2007 [in english, she compared and analysed the results of a lot of studies, conducted over a long time: 25 years].

Markey (2007a, 2007b) draws a profile of the searchers discussed in twenty-five years of on-line searching literature. She finds that:

• Searches are comprised of surprisingly few queries:
  • more sophisticated searching capabilities (including Boolean operators) are rarely used;
  • and that when complex syntax is used, it is often wrong.
• Users move quickly to the results of their searches;
  • are relatively satisfied with the results;
  • and despite the assertions in the literature that they need it, don’t want training.

She concludes in her first article, that simple searching seems to be meeting user needs.

But in her second article, focused more on the research agenda, Markey suggests that though the short query interactions users have with on-line retrieval systems may seem simple, they are embedded in complex processes. Improving search requires a much more nuanced understanding of that context. Markey identifies a series of research questions designed to build this knowledge, cautioning that investment in complex systems may not pay off (given user preference for simple search and immediate results), and urging the study of users ‘in the wild’ rather than in contrived environments with researcher-assigned tasks.

User interactions with live systems are the best available evidence of their information needs. Search logs are direct evidence of users’ interests and we need to pay more attention to them.

References [sorry, couldn't find the full texts freely available on-line]:

Markey, K. (2007a). Twenty-five years of end-user searching, Part 1: Research findings. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(8), 1071-1081. from http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/114210851/ABSTRACT

Markey, K. (2007b). Twenty-five years of end-user searching, Part 2: Future research directions. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(8), 1123-1130. from http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/114210853/ABSTRACT