What Next?

1. What Next? Search Strategy Formulation

2. Strategy Formulation • No Search Strategies Exactly Alike • No Search Style Exactly Alike • Patron Present vs. Not Present • If Present (Come back later after you have had time to prepare) • If not Present (Prep. Time and less pressure)

3. Search Styles • Building Block • Successive Fractions • Pearl Growing • Citation Searching • Fuzzy Logic • Berrypicking

4. Building Block • Venn Diagram Approach(draw relationship) • Perform two or more sub-searches, then combine to complete search • Breaking down search into simple, minimal sets. • Allows for greater flexibility in manipulating steps as you proceed through search

5. Building Block (cont’d) • Set 1 Concept A • Set 2 Concept B • Set 3 Concept C • Set 4 A + B + C

6. Successive Fractions • Begin broad-based problem approach • Comprehensiveness is goal • Use successive steps to narrow the set down until you reach a reasonable, printable, and affordable set • Can be broader if you feel you are eliminating relevant citations or,

7. Successive Fractions (cont’d) • Could be narrower and have limitations placed on it that may not be prescribed by patron if retrieval seems too great • Anticipate these decisions prior to online • Several steps to reach a “reasonable” printout, may not be level requested

8. Successive Fractions (cont’d) • One giant set that encompasses every possible reference to the topic • Each successive search term uses an AND logical relationship to eliminate less relevant from the total

9. Pearl Growing • Target the bulls-eye: the perfect citation, the perfect search result set • Build outward in a sequence of searches following leads from sure winners • One good article leads to one good author lead to one good co-author leads to one good school of thought......

10. Pearl Growing (cont’d) • Times when you get a result on the surface that doesn’t seem to fit any DE for that db, and you’re not comfortable with the topic and not certain where to begin • Citation Pearl = Patron may be able to give you and article he finds esp. Useful • Get online, locate the citation, analyze DE, run a strategy, view titles, select relevant ones, repeat the process

11. Pearl Growing (cont’d) • If patron not present to determine relevancy, print sample titles of each set, call patron, log back onto system later and continue search • The patron gives you the “pearl”. If he is unable to give you this pearl, you can often find it by looking at keywords in titles using his exact terminology and build from this point

12. Citation Search • Related to the Pearl approach • Works better online compared to printed tools SCI/SSCI • Requestor brings you an article of interest, and you give him a list of citing references • Concept of “relatedness”

13. Citation Search (cont’) • Gets around the vocabulary/DE problems • Most patrons never consider citation searching approach • Suggest when trying for comprehensiveness or for times when retrieval is too small

14. Fuzzy Logic • Natural language approach • Some systems translate the query • Can literally ask the question including all stopwords, punctuation, etc. • Not quite there yet!

15. Berrypicking Approach • Marcia J. Bates classic article • Closer to real behavior of information searchers • Evolving Search - At each stage, new ideas and directions emerge, search are not modified just to get a better match for a single query but the query is continually shifting

16. Berrypicking Approach (cont’d) • A bit-at-a-time retrieval • Berrypicking analogy - berries scattered on the bushes and do not come in bunches. One must pick one at a time • Users employ different stragegies: • Footnote chasing (backward chaining) • Citation searching (forward chaining)

17. Berrypicking Approach (cont’d) • Journal run • Area Scanning • Author searching

18. What Can Go Wrong? • Patron reviews results and informs you that the search is no good! Missed his own papers or search failed to pick up other things he has read on the topic. • Maintain credibility • Two Education Process • Pre- and Post- Search Interview

19. What Can Go Wrong? (cont’d) • Must Read Database Chapters • Thesaurus materials to understand what db encompasses or be familiar with printed tool • Avoid relying only only one page aid/cheat sheets from vendor (help how to search the system but offer no description of the db)

20. What Can Go Wrong? (cont’d) • Don’t overlook large multidisciplinary files • If you are too narrow (new searchers), easy to overlook these files • Avoid reliance on small subject specific files • Example - SCI - Nice compliment - Covers more than life sciences, cover-to-cover indexing, includes more journals that MEDL does not.

21. What Can Go Wrong? (cont’d) • Over-Reliance on CROS/DialIndex and select files • Initially, lot of appeal when unfamiliar • But, strategy that works well in one file may only retrieve a fraction of what might be in another file • So, number of citations may not be truly indicative of what is actually contained in certain databases (NOT an exhaustive strategy)

22. What Can Go Wrong? (cont’d) • Strategy is Wrong! • Database fine but not strategy • Truncating problems • Remember double-posting • Too specific (WITH vs. ADJ) • Don’t do everything on 1 or 2 statements; break it up! Difficult to post-qualify if you have already ANDed and NOTed!

23. What Can Go Wrong? (cont’d) • Difficult to manipulate search terms when trying different approaches without rekeying in concepts again • Potential problems saving in one file and re-executing in another file (Unit records may differ considerably or DE in one file may not be DE in another file. • Don’t understand the BI • Never accept null sets

24. What Can Go Wrong? (cont’d) • Patron Lied!!!! • Mislead you • Patents, esp. • Doesn’t understand what purpose searching has