AN ASSESSMENT OF THE ONLINE SEARCHING BEHAVIOUR OF PRACTITIONER END USERS

The study set out to determine: (1) what were the searching characteristics of end users in a non‐academic environment and explain this in the light of their information needs; (2) whether these characteristics were those that were ascribed to end users in the professional literature; (3) whether they differed materially from those of information professionals working in the same fields. Searching characteristics were interpreted in their widest sense to include: command utilisation/knowledge; search success and satisfaction; volume of searching; searching style/ approach; duration of searches; file selection; willingness to delegate and levels of training. These issues were explored in relation to two practitioner groups — journalists from The Guardian newspaper, and politicians from The House of Commons. Comparative data were also sought from information professionals in these two organisations. A mixture of social and statistical methods was used to monitor end‐user and professional searching, though transactional log analysis was strongly featured. Altogether the searching behaviour of 170 end users was evaluated in the light of the searching behaviour of seventy librarians. The principal findings were that: in some respects end users did conform to the picture that information professionals have of them: they did search with a limited range of commands; more of their searches produced no results, and search statements were simply constructed. But in other respects they confounded their image — they could be very quick and economical searchers, and they did not display metres of print‐out. However, there were variations between individual end users, and it was often possible to find an end‐user group that matched an information professional group on one aspect of online searching or another. The online behaviour of end users was very much related to their general information seeking behaviour; and to the fact that they were not trained.