Search

Purpose – Scholars rely on electronic databases to conduct searches and locate relevant citations. The purpose of this paper is to compare the retrieval results on the same topic (multiple sclerosis and liberation therapy) of two commonly used databases for searching print news media: ProQuest’s Canadian Newsstand Major Dailies and Dow Jones’ Factiva. Design/methodology/approach – A case study comparing two electronic searchable databases using the same keywords, date range, and newspaper-specific search parameters across three Canadian university institutions. Findings – Considerable differences were found between institutional searches using Factiva. Factiva allows all individual users the capacity to establish systems-wide “administrator” privileges, thereby controlling the output for subsequent users if these preferences are not changed. The capacity for individual users to tailor searches within Canadian Newsstand Major Dailies was more in line with standard protocols for institutions paying for single user accounts with access to multiple sessions within that same institution: any user-specific searching/retrieval preferences are individually contained within a search and do not influence the searches of a different user. Research limitations/implications – What began as a comparative analysis of two commonly used databases for searching print news media turned into an examination of larger systemic problems. The findings call into question several factors: the integrity of a researcher-generated data set; the quality of results published in peer-reviewed journals based on researcher-generated data sets derived from established e-resource databases; the reliability of the same e-resource database across multiple institutions; and the quality of e-resource databases for scholarly research when developed to serve primarily non-academic clients. Originality/value – No comparison of this kind for these particular e-resource databases has been documented in the literature. In fact, the scholarly publications that address questions of functionality and reliability of either Factiva or Proquest have not brought this issue into the discussion. Therefore, this study furthers academic discourse on the nature and reliability of database use at any academic institution and illustrates that researchers, in a variety of academic fields, cannot depend on the reliability of their search results without thoroughly consulting the various settings of their database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- Conducting academic searches within online digital libraries can be a difficult task due to the complexity of the searcher's information need. The interfaces for such digital libraries commonly use simple search features that provide limited support for the fundamental strategies that academic searchers employ. The authors have developed a novel visualisation interface called Bow Tie Academic Search to address some of these shortcomings, and present in this paper the findings from a user evaluation. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach -- A controlled laboratory study was conducted to compare a traditional search interface to Bow Tie Academic Search. In total, 24 graduate students were recruited to perform academic searches using the two candidate interfaces, guided by specific sub-tasks that focus on citation and keyword analysis strategies. Findings -- Although the use of the core visualisation and exploration features did not reveal differences in retrieval effectiveness or efficiency, the query refinement features were found to be effective. Strongly positive impressions of usefulness and ease of use of all aspects of the system were reported, along with a preference for using Bow Tie Academic Search for academic search tasks. Originality/value -- This study provides insight into the potential value for providing visual and interactive interfaces for supporting academic search tasks and strategies. While the quantitative improvements over the traditional search interface were minimal, the qualitative measures illustrate the value of Bow Tie Academic Search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - Most digital libraries (DL) are now available online. They also provide the Z39.50 standard protocol which allows computer-based systems to effectively retrieve information stored in the DLs. The major difficulty lies in inconsistency between database schemas of multiple DLs. The purpose of this paper is to present a system known as Argumentation-based Digital Library Search (ADLSearch), which facilitates information retrieval across multiple DLs. Design/methodology/approach - The proposed approach is based on argumentation theory for schema matching reconciliation from multiple schema matching algorithms. In addition, a distributed architecture is proposed for the ADLSearch system for information retrieval from multiple DLs. Findings - Initial performance results are promising. First, schema matching can improve the retrieval performance on DLs, as compared to the baseline technique. Subsequently, argumentationbased retrieval can yield better matching accuracy and retrieval efficiency than individual schema matching algorithms. Research limitations/implications - The work discussed in this paper has been implemented as a prototype supporting scholarly retrieval from about 800 DLs over the world. However, due to complexity of argumentation algorithm, the process of adding new DLs to the system cannot be performed in a real-time manner. Originality/value - In this paper, an argumentation-based approach is proposed for reconciling the conflicts from multiple schema matching algorithms in the context of information retrieval from multiple DL. Moreover, the proposed approach can also be applied for similar applications which require automatic mapping from multiple database schemas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]