How do children find information on different types of tasks? Children's use of the Science Library Catalog - information retrieval system - includes appendix on search tasks - Children and the Digital Library

Library Trends, Spring, 1997 by Sandra G. Hirsh

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Table 3 indicates that the six children who used the keyword only method to complete all of their search tasks were successful on all tasks. Given the limited number of children who used this method exclusively to complete all tasks, it is not possible to generalize about these findings. However, the results do suggest that all keyword only searchers were always successful in identifying book record they considered relevant to the search topic.

The success rates for the fourteen children who used browse only to complete their search tasks ranged from 43 percent on Topic 8 (Astronauts) to 100 percent on Topic 3 (Growing Garden Crops). To find book records on "Astronauts" using the browse method, children needed to navigate through the hierarchical structure by looking first under People Using Science, then under Engineering, then under Other Branches of Engineering, and finally under Space Flight. Children may not have understood what Engineering meant or thought to look under the category, Other Branches of Engineering. Books on "Growing Garden Crops" appeared to be easy for these children to find, probably because the bookshelf heading corresponded well with the assigned task. These books were located under People Using Science, then under Raising Plants and Animals, then under Garden Crops, and finally again under Garden Crops.

Success rates for the majority of the children (n=44) who used a combination of browse and keyword search methods or mixed methods displayed a similar range of scores. Children who used mixed methods were least successful (52 percent success rate) in finding books on Topic 6 (Desert Environment) and were most successful (95 percent success rate) on Topic 3 (Growing Garden Crops).

In order to understand the relationship between the search methods used and the success rate on specific categories of tasks, children's success in using the browse-only method to search for simple-browsing and complex-browsing tasks was examined. Children who used the browse-only method consistently all tasks (n=14) performed better on the simple-browsing tasks (mean = 3.36) than on the complex-browsing tasks (mean=2.93). It was not possible to compare children's success on simple-keyword and complex-keyword tasks when the keyword-only search method was used to complete all of the tasks since there was no variability in the data.

Discussion

While children overall experienced success rates averaging 80 percent across all of the tasks on the advanced version of the Science Library Catalog, the result show that success varied by task characteristics. The discussion interprets the findings by the research questions posed earlier in this article.

1. Does the topic of the search task influence information retrieval results on an automated library catalog?

Children were equally successful in finding materials on science topics (Dewey 500s) and technology topics (Dewey 600s) on the advanced version of the Science Library Catalog. These findings differ from some of the prior studies on the Science Library Catalog browse-only interface which found that children performed more successfully on science topics than on technology topics (Borgman et al., 1995). However, these earlier studies also found that children performed equally well on science and technology topics when the topics were searched on keyword-based online catalogs. This suggests that the availability of both keyword and browse search methods on the same information retrieval system minimized these science/technology topic differences.