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Information seeking research often reports about types of information resources, ways of acquiring them and opinions on their importance in various professions. Based on self-reporting, these findings are affected by human memory and rationalisation. This article proposes a new way of studying information resource use – based on dwell time in the context provided by concrete work tasks. We use log data of 21 information workers from six organisations to analyse how work task complexity is connected to the time used in various information resources; how task complexity is connected to information resource use in different task types. Unlike traditionally, our findings consist of objective data on which resource types are used, and for how long, in work tasks of varying complexity and type. For example, the findings suggest that growing work task complexity increases the dwell time in local personal computer (PC) resources; these resources are especially popular in intellectual tasks. Such findings help understand factors affecting information resource use. Likewise, they help focus attention on most time-consuming aspects of task-based information interaction when developing support for work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information searching in practice seldom is an end in itself. In work, work task (WT) performance forms the context, which information searching should serve. Therefore, information retrieval (IR) systems development/evaluation should take the WT context into account. The present paper analyzes how WT features: task complexity and task types, affect information searching in authentic work: the types of information needs, search processes, and search media. We collected data on 22 information professionals in authentic work situations in three organization types: city administration, universities, and companies. The data comprise 286 WTs and 420 search tasks (STs). The data include transaction logs, video recordings, daily questionnaires, interviews. and observation. The data were analyzed quantitatively. Even if the participants used a range of search media, most STs were simple throughout the data, and up to 42% of WTs did not include searching. WT's effects on STs are not straightforward: different WT types react differently to WT complexity. Due to the simplicity of authentic searching, the WT/ST types in interactive IR experiments should be reconsidered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study was to test whether query expansion by approximate string matching methods is beneficial in retrieval from historical newspaper collections in a language rich with compounds and inflectional forms ( Finnish). First, approximate string matching methods were used to generate lists of index words most similar to contemporary query terms in a digitized newspaper collection from the 1800s. Top index word variants were categorized to estimate the appropriate query expansion ranges in the retrieval test. Second, the effectiveness of approximate string matching methods, automatically generated inflectional forms, and their combinations were measured in a Cranfield-style test. Finally, a detailed topic-level analysis of test results was conducted. In the index of historical newspaper collection the occurrences of a word typically spread to many linguistic and historical variants along with optical character recognition ( OCR) errors. All query expansion methods improved the baseline results. Extensive expansion of around 30 variants for each query word was required to achieve the highest performance improvement. Query expansion based on approximate string matching was superior to using the inflectional forms of the query words, showing that coverage of the different types of variation is more important than precision in handling one type of variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. This paper examines information seeking in a city administration. We analyse the relationship between information source use and task complexity, and the connections between sources and information types. Method. Data were collected through pre-task and post-task questionnaires completed by six city administration employees during their normal workdays. The data set was collected on fifty-nine tasks chosen by the participants. Analysis. The pre-task and post-task forms of the same underlying task were joined together and each task was assigned an aggregated complexity estimate based on the estimates made by the participants. Expected (pre-task) and materialised (post-task) information types and sources were classified and finally, quantitative analysis methods and statistical tests were used to find trends in information source use by task complexity. Results. Five information source types (the Web, organizational information systems, email, human sources, other) were recognised in the data. Task complexity affected the use of some sources more than others. Increasing task complexity reduces the use of organizational information systems and increases the use of Web resources, respectively. Conclusion. We found that task complexity is an important factor explaining information seeking behaviour, and specific source types are used when seeking for specific information types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. The purpose of this paper is to study information types in the context of simple, semicomplex and complex tasks in city administration. Task complexity has proved an important aspect of information seeking practices. Method. Employees of a city administration completed questionnaires when initiating and finishing their work tasks. Questions concerned task complexity, information use, task performer's role and a priori determinability of the task, for instance. Analysis. The data comprised of fifty-nine tasks performed by six participants. The tasks were divided in categories based on their perceived complexity. Thereafter, information types expected at the beginning of the tasks and materialised at the end were statistically analysed within and between complexity categories. Results. The study found that task complexity affects information use significantly. Our results partly corroborate earlier findings by Bystrom in partly the same organizational setting. Her findings concerned only materialised use, whereas we analysed expected use and differences between these two, as well. Conclusions. The more complex the task, the less facts and the more information aggregates are used. The use of known-items was independent of task complexity. Overall, external information is used little but more in complex than in simple tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]