Integrated Faceted Browser and Direct Search to Enhance Information Retrieval in Text-Based Digital Libraries

Shea-Tinn Yeh, Yan Liu
2011 International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction  
Browsing and searching are two prominent paradigms in information retrieval. As digital libraries grow in size and types of collections, their user bases are expanding and include more non-expert users. For those who are not familiar with what the content of a specific text-based digital collection is or its data structure, the browse functionality offers the entry point to explore and obtain an overview. In current digital library implementations, exploratory browsing is sometimes not
more » ... as an option. When offered, it is commonly presented as an alphabetical listing of chosen categories depending on the scope of the digital collections. Studies have revealed that information seekers feel fatigued easily and that they are willing to scan at most 200 items of citations in electronic environments. In addition, when users are ready to search with a specific query during the browsing activity, they have to switch to another information space where the search box is separated from the browsing lists. A consequence of such design is that users have to toggle back and forth between browsing and searching states. Within this context, faceted navigation has been discussed and a conceptual model of an integrated faceted browser and direct search utilizing faceted navigation for text-based digital libraries is also proposed in this research. A faceted browser provides users with many entry points at first glance which enable them to receive an overview of the content of the digital libraries effectively and efficiently. A faceted browser integrated with
doi:10.1080/10447318.2011.540492 fatcat:ra7eqwkworamrk4gm7z6ls5wre