Examines the differences between Web image and textual queries, and attempts to develop an analytic model to investigate their implications for Web image retrieval systems. Provides results that give insight into Web image searching behavior and suggests implications for improvement of current Web image search engines. (AEF)

Tests the use of questions as a technique in the query specification process. Using a within-subjects design, 48 people interacted with a modified Google interface to solve four information problems in four domains. Half the tasks were entered as typical keyword queries, and half as questions or statements. Results suggest the typical search box…

A task-oriented, comparative evaluation between four Web retrieval systems was performed; two using query-biased summarization, and two using the standard ranked titles/abstracts approach. Results indicate that query-biased summarization techniques appear to be more useful and effective in helping users gauge document relevance than the…

Describes the results of a transaction log analysis of a Web search engine, WebCrawler, to analyze user's queries for information retrieval. Results suggest most users do not employ advanced search features, and the linguistic structure often resembles a human-human communication model that is not always successful in human-computer communication.…

Describes EquiX, a search language for XML that combines querying with searching to query the data and the meta-data content of Web pages. Topics include search engines; a data model for XML documents; search query syntax; search query semantics; an algorithm for evaluating a query on a document; and indexing EquiX queries. (LRW)

Findings from a study of users' multitasking searches on Web search engines include: multitasking searches are a noticeable user behavior; multitasking search sessions are longer than regular search sessions in terms of queries per session and duration; both Excite and AlltheWeb.com users search for about three topics per multitasking session and…

Discussion of scholarly Web pages that are not accessible through standard search engines focuses on the development of automatic extraction techniques that combine lexical and syntactic analyses with heuristics. Topics include information analysis and extraction techniques; citation standards; publication index Web pages; and performance…

End user searching on the Web has become the primary method of locating images for many people. This study investigates the nature of Web image queries by attempting to map them to known image classification schemes. In this study, approximately 100,000 image queries from a major Web search engine were collected in 1997, 1999, and 2001. A…

Studies show that the majority of Web searchers enter extremely simple queries, so a reasonable system design approach would be to build search engines to compensate for this user characteristic. One hundred representative queries were selected from the transaction log of a major Web search service. These 100 queries were then modified using the…

Discusses various types of information that can be retrieved from the Web via search engines. Highlights include Web pages; time frames, including historical coverage and currentness; text pages in formats other than HTML; directory sites; news articles; discussion groups; images; and audio and video. (LRW)

This article discusses the process for the production of online finding aids with BASYS-Fox system and it describes the scope of application of EAD in the Bundesarchiv. In 2000, the project "Presentation of Online Finding Aids with the EAD system" was started at Bundesarchiv. The project was promoted by the German Science Foundation…

Reports results from a project that investigated the influence of two types of expertise--knowledge of the search domain and experience of the Web search engines--on students' use of a Web search engine. Results showed participants with good knowledge in the domain and participants with high experience of the Web had the best performances. (AEF)

Discussion of searching for information on the Web focuses on resources that are not always found by traditional Web searches. Describes sources on the hidden Web, including full-text databases, clearinghouses, digital libraries, and learning objects; explains how search engines operate; and suggests that traditional print sources are still…

Discussion of information available on the Internet focuses on two pilot studies that investigated how academic users perceive search engines and subject-oriented databases as sources of topical information. Highlights include information seeking behavior of academic users; undergraduate users; graduate users; faculty; and implications for…

Results from an analysis of 1,025,010 Excite queries from 2001 are compared to similar Excite datasets from 1997 to 1999. Overall, results indicate that multimedia Web searching is undergoing major changes as Web content and searching evolves. (AEF)