Section Four

4.2 Bates, M.J. (1989). Design of Browsing and Berrypicking Techniques for Online Search Interface. Online Review, 13, 407-424.

Bates uses the berrypicking metaphor to describe her model because it reflects the nature of how information is gathered. Clusters of information, like berries, congregate in certain areas and in order to collect all of the relevant data, one must change strategies and tactics like a berry-picker. In this document, Bates argues that the berrypicking model more closely resembles the actual nature of searching, as users do not perform one search and one search only. By applying these principles, Bates argues that interface design could better represent the needs of the user.

A few years ago, I took a course offered at Rutgers as an undergrad called Principles of Cognitive Science. Towards the end of the semester we learned that it is possible to apply the principles from that class to determine the meaning of famous works of art. Simply by studying the asymmetries in the painting, the expression and emotion were determined. It would be remarkable if a search engine could apply the same principles to find information about an image, instead of simply determining the meaning. While mainstream search engines like Google and Yahoo allow the user to search for images, it does so by sifting through the words tagged to the pictures. It would be interesting if the user were able to submit a picture and have the system analyze the curvature and lines in the image in order to retrieve the title or any other words surrounding the picture. While I do not see this feature being a heavily used engine, it would certainly be helpful if one really liked a print, but could not find any of the artist's information.

Prior to reading this article, I strictly followed abstract and index searches for my school assignments. Occasionally I would visit the library to collect a book, but other than that, I did not contemplate other methods of searching. Through this article, I was able to see numerous ways to gather information. I have already employed some of these methods for both my individual and group projects. After getting one article from Library Quarterly, I sifted through it on a journal run and did not find good results; yet one of the best resources I have discovered came through footnote chasing the same article.

Section Four

4.1 Dervin, B. (1992). From the Mind's Eye of the User: The Sense-Making Qualitative Methodology. In J. D. Glazier & R. R. Powell (Eds.), Qualitative research in information management (pp. 61-84).

Brenda Dervin presents a user-centered model focusing on the user's ability to make sense of the information they find. It contrasts other user-focused models by incorporating how the user is able to utilize the information they find. It focuses on the information gap a user finds and the means the user takes to build a bridge and get across the gap. This approach combines qualitative and quantitative research methods to best serve the user. Dervin provides several exemplars to document exactly how the sense-making approach is employed in realistic situations.

I felt the exemplars provided in the study were very realistic. A lot of the literature I read has focused on helping users in a professional or scholastic setting, but a large percentage of users have questions regarding things in a casual atmosphere like those Dervin used in her study. Each example showed a different user and describes the gaps associated with each problem on a situation-specific basis. For example, the first example showcases a young mother contemplating going back to school and the second exemplar depicts a nervous blood donor. While these are very specific cases that I most likely will not encounter in the elementary school setting, I found the step-by-step questioning process that breaks down this model for each example to be personal. That each user had a distinct problem unique to the other users made this approach realistic. Even though the children I will be working with will be within the same school, learning relatively the same things, every one of my future students will have different home lives, friends, learning styles and so on. The more I am able to apply a model that works to aid unique information situations, the better librarian I will become.

Another aspect of this model that I find very easy to access is the heavy importance placed upon the context of the user and the user's information need. What may be helpful in one instance is not helpful in another. Someone browsing the internet for romantic honeymoon locations when the wedding is four months away has a lot more options than the same person looking for locations four days before the wedding because a hypothetical hurricane destroyed the first destination. The person and the wedding have stayed the same, but the timing has shifted, making the search more urgent and the user is more likely to just select something than he or she was four months prior. Also, the emotional situation of the user has shifted as he or she might misread the act of nature to be an omen upon their future married life. These factors are very important to the situation and if librarians are able to ferret out even a slice of the time-space context of the user, then they are better able to serve the user.