NASIG 2016

When considering academic researchers’ information-seeking and retrieval needs, we often focus on search – optimizing for search, Google-like search for libraries, user preferences for one-box quick-search tools, and so on. But what about unplanned instances of discovery? Are new technologies, such as text mining and natural language processing, enabling new pathways that lead researchers to relevant material, perhaps even leading to surprising new connections across disciplines? Conversely, with the prevalence of satisficing, does serendipity even play a role when searching for information about a scholarly topic?_x000D_

Through a study of undergraduate students and their faculty members, as well as a survey of publisher and website offerings, this talk will summarize common user pathways and how today’s students and faculty use content recommendation tools with recommendations for how libraries and the scholarly communications community might respond.