Interdisciplinary work and the information search process: A comparison of manual and online searching

Abstract

Library users' research interests and needs are becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. This type of research presents searchers with obstacles that differ from disciplinary research. Using the information search process (ISP) developed by Carol C. Kithlthau as a theoretical model, this study compares the impact of manual and online search methods on the interdisciplinary search task in terms of the relevance of retrieved items, user effort, user satisfaction, user confidence and future use. This comparative investigation examines two senior-level journalism classes researching judicial decisions related to the mass media. One class used printed legal reference sources; the other class used LEXIS, a full-text legal database. The results of this study indicate that online search methods are more effective than manual search methods when users are working outside their areas of specialization.