Known-item search: Variations on a concept

Abstract

The concept of known-item search has long been central to research and application in library and information science. It is surprising then that this concept has received practically no systematic discussion. We survey the various conceptual and operational characterizations of known-item search in the LIS literature in order to determine exactly how the concept is being understood by its users. We demonstrate that this apparently simple notion is actually quite complex and varied, and moreover, that there is hardly a single feature ordinarily associated with it that can confidently be said to be an essential part of the concept.