Article Abstract - "Seek and You May Find: Successful Search in Online Finding Aid Systems," by Morgan G. Daniels and Elizabeth Yakel

Finally! I am writing up my post about "Seek and You May Find: Successful Search in Online Finding Aid Systems," by Morgan G. Daniels and Elizabeth Yakel, an article which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2010 American Archivist. I was quite interested in reading this piece of scholarship, as I think that making archival collections available and "findable" to users via online search systems is an especially poignant area of significance given present trends and technologies. As the authors point out, studies of this kind are relatively rare in the Archival sphere. I think that there are a variety of reasons for this phenomenon, perhaps including over-extension of archival duties (small budgets and long to-do lists likely make retrieval studies unfeasible for many institutions), the divide between formal archival training and technological proficiency (are archivists capable of transforming results of online finding aid studies into reformatted interfaces which would better meet the needs and searching habits/abilities of users?), as well as the seemingly ever-changing status of online resources (is it worth pursuing an extensive study if systems are likely to evolve with general technological trends in the next few years?).

Overall, I think that this particular study is an excellent starting point for developing critical analysis of online finding aid systems, which may lay the groundwork for system interface changes in the future. It exhibits excellent intentions and goals, however it also has a number of shortcomings in its methods.

The authors begin with a literature review, which gives an overview of potentially relevant related Library Science heuristic studies, information-seeking patterns of historians and other archival users, as well as several studies of finding aid usability; few retrieval studies exist within the current body of archival professional literature. Extant identified problems with online archival finding aids include confusion over archival terminology and organization of information in finding aids, as well as significant differences in search success between experience and novice users.

The remainder of the article is formatted around a retrieval experiment study conducted at the University of Michigan, using finding aid systems from the Bentley Historical Library’s Online Finding Aids system at the University of Michigan and the federated statewide search tool at the Online Archive of New Mexico (OANM).” Its goal is to analyze users' interactions with online archival systems (search strategies and query reformation) to better understand how interfaces may be improved or users may be educated to ensure higher success rates for queries using databases designed or archival repositories.

Precise questions pursued include:

• How do people search archival collections online?
• What are the characteristics of a successful search?
• Are there optimal search strategies for accessing information about primary sources in online finding aid systems?
• What role does query reformulation play in a successful search of online finding aids?

Through a survey, retrieval experiments, and post-test interviews, the authors analyzed test subject's backgrounds, intellectual perspectives, search choices, and rationals. The test pool included only 43 individuals--a number I think is a bit too small to yield trustworthy statistical results. From what I gather, all participants in the study were from the vicinity of the University of Michigan, where all testing took place. Again, this is a seriously limiting demographic factor which could easily skew results. These users are more likely to have experience using the database from Michigan over that from New Mexico.

Additionally, this study was conducted in 2005. Technology changes quite quickly and new interfaces are being created, adapted, and updated frequently. Technological competencies and education of users also changes relatively quickly as technologies develop. Therefore, I feel that it is possible that these results may differ if the study were to be similarly conducted at present. Still, I believe that the questions sought and methods developed by the researchers could be helpful for a more broad-based study using more a larger, more diverse population of users.

Despite the potential shortcomings in the researchers' methodologies, I feel that the subsequent results and discussion they create are valuable contributions to the field at present. Interesting insights include the idea that there appeared to be a significant learning curve during the course of the experiment, and users with more experience using archival databases and more frequent general database searching also exhibited higher success rates. These factors support archival education and general information literacy as strategies to better ensure users' connection with sought materials.

Archivists, like many professionals who operate within a sort of professional jargon (e.g. front matter in archival finding aids and the concept of the finding aid structure in general), need to remember that our terminology is not universally understood. Archival arrangement and organization is not second nature, thus it needs to be explained to users before they may be adept at finding the information they seek. Other "holes" in the research subjects' search strategies include infrequent use of potentially helpful Library of Congress subject heading lists, misunderstanding of provenance, and mental disparities over how repositories, collections, and items relate to one another.

Another important issue that this study touched upon is user access to digitized materials. Surely digitization is the direction that archives are headed, however as this study showed, simply because materials are digitized does not mean that users will be aware of such content or be able to connect to it easily. Access to digital materials must be honed in order to more effectively make use of online materials--launched with increasing frequency given rising focus on technology, especially in terms of grant-funded project.

All in all, the study breaches the professional conversation of online finding aid use and user search effectiveness. In the future, we will likely need to focus on archival information literacy, by better guiding users though archival terminology, arrangement, organization, and using "shortcut" tools such as Library of Congress subject headings to connect with sought information. The prevalence of online finding aids means that the archivist is no longer the point of contact for archival collections; this has never before been the case. Perhaps more frequent employment of online archival chat reference may aid in guiding researchers through online resources. Whatever the results, high potential exists in the improvement users' finding aid navigation and potential use and relevancy of archival collections in research--assuming the profession can harness the technological proficiency to enable such changes. I am excited to see where such studies lead in the future.