Museum Web search behavior of special interest visitors
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Museum Web search behavior of special interest visitors. / Skov, Mette; Ingwersen, Peter.
In: Library & Information Science Research, Vol. 36, No. 2, 20.05.2014, p. 91-98.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Museum Web search behavior of special interest visitors
AU - Skov, Mette
AU - Ingwersen, Peter
PY - 2014/5/20
Y1 - 2014/5/20
N2 - There is a current trend to make museum collections widely accessible by digitising cultural heritage collections for the Internet. The present study takes a user perspective and explores the characteristics of online museum visitors' web search behaviour. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was deployed in a case study at a National Museum of Military History. Quantitatively, data from a web questionnaire survey and a user study of interactive searching behaviour were collected and analysed. Qualitatively, observation protocols were coded and analysed based on inductive content analysis. It was found that metadata elements on factual object related information, provenience, and historic context was indicated to be relevant by the majority of the respondents, characterising the group of special interest museum visitors as information hungry. Further, four main characteristics of online museum visitors' searching behaviour were identified: (a) searchingbehaviour has a strong visual aspect, (b) topical searching is predominantly exploratory, (c) users apply broad known item searches, and (d) meaning making is central to the search process.
AB - There is a current trend to make museum collections widely accessible by digitising cultural heritage collections for the Internet. The present study takes a user perspective and explores the characteristics of online museum visitors' web search behaviour. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was deployed in a case study at a National Museum of Military History. Quantitatively, data from a web questionnaire survey and a user study of interactive searching behaviour were collected and analysed. Qualitatively, observation protocols were coded and analysed based on inductive content analysis. It was found that metadata elements on factual object related information, provenience, and historic context was indicated to be relevant by the majority of the respondents, characterising the group of special interest museum visitors as information hungry. Further, four main characteristics of online museum visitors' searching behaviour were identified: (a) searchingbehaviour has a strong visual aspect, (b) topical searching is predominantly exploratory, (c) users apply broad known item searches, and (d) meaning making is central to the search process.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - Cultural Heritage
KW - Museum studies
KW - Web museum OPAC
KW - Information behaviour
KW - searching behaviour
U2 - 10.1016/j.lisr.2013.11.004
DO - 10.1016/j.lisr.2013.11.004
M3 - Journal article
VL - 36
SP - 91
EP - 98
JO - Library and Information Science Research
JF - Library and Information Science Research
SN - 0740-8188
IS - 2
ER -
ID: 118051336