Information Seeking in Electronic Environments

Cambridge Series on Human-Computer Interaction

by Gary Marchionini

In the computer age, it is essential for individuals to develop skills and strategies for manipulating, storing, and retrieving electronic information. This book considers how electronic technologies have changed these skills and strategies and augmented the fundamental human activity of information seeking. Writing from the point of view of the user rather than the computer, the author makes a case for creating new interface designs that allow information seekers to choose what strategy to apply according to their immediate needs. Such systems may be designed by providing information seekers with alternative interface mechanisms for displaying and manipulating multiple levels of representation for information objects. This book is multidisciplinary in approach and aims to bridge the perspectives of information science, computer science and education. It will be essential reading for researchers and graduate students in these fields.

Genres: Library Science, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 26, 1995

Reviews

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Information Seeking in Electronic Environments by Gary Marchionini was published the year I first started grad school. It was a time when the internet was still relatively new and Google was still a graduate student project. The book covers ways of finding information with the aid of computers and was a supplemental textbook for my Information and Society course.

Although the specific programs and screenshots used as examples in Information Seeking in Electronic Environments are out of date (and in many cases, nonexistent), the methodology behind those programs is still in use in modern day programs. I suspect the methods will continue to be useful even as future generations of programs and services are created.

The book covers topics like browsing versus searching, the reasons behind information seeking, the process of finding information, mechanisms to aid searching and the continuing evolution of information seeking. These are all topics we covered in both of my classes this semester and continue to be topics of interest in library science.

Pages 124-37 of the "Why Browse" gives the best snap shot of where internet technology was in 1995. Of especial interest to me is Figure 6-11 on page 137 is a Semantic map display of files searched on a computer. Boxes are drawn around the different topics and the larger boxes represent the topics of most interest. In other words, it's an early version of a tag cloud, something that is being used more and more in Web 2.0 applications.

So while the book was supplemental reading and has out of date screenshots, it's still a fascinating and useful reference book that I plan to hold on to.

[Melissa Rosales · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the time I took 202, this was my more interesting text, but I am re-reading this book since I am getting more in the HCI. This is an excellent read on user-searching behavior patterns online.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best books I had to read for any of my classes in library science.