Abstract
There are increasing numbers of systems designed to share information resources among different organizations. However, as the main point of discussion of these systems is the method of mapping the metadata element set of each database onto the others', users' viewpoints are kept out of the discussion of constructing systems. This paper aims to analyze user demands by investigating the actual use of information retrieval systems to examine search methods in shared resource systems. People's retrieval processes were investigated using a cognitive psychological experiment, with protocol analysis and interviews. Through a detailed analysis of their information retrieval processes, the following results were found: 1) a query that allows searches on all search elements together is effective for users who do not understand the details of either queries or databases; 2) elements such as 'Title', the definition of which is clear and easily understood, are used effectively; 3) even if an element is effective for retrieval, such as 'Date', it is not used when the format of the values in the element is not shown. Based on the results of this investigation, we discuss a method for constructing search elements in resource sharing systems.
