The Presentation of Reference Information to Facilitate Search,Retrieval and Utilization

Abstract

Reference knowledge is very important for both personal expertise development and the development and viability of an organization. For reference material to be utilized effectively however, it must be organized and displayed in a way that facilitates the task goals of the user. Due to the complex interactions of the human-task-context relationship, evaluation of reference knowledge displays must involve studying how its effectiveness changes as these parameters are varied. As the Internet becomes a more prevalent way of providing reference information to the general public, great care must be used to ensure that the website structure facilitates the different information retrieval goals of the various users. This paper discusses an ongoing study that investigates the efficiency of information retrieval for two different types of task goals in two different website structures.

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