A Content Analysis of Strategies and Tactics Observed Among MLIS Students in an Online Searching Course

IntroductionAs far back as the 1980s, many programs offering a master's degree in library science (MLS) recognized that the move to computerized information retrieval would affect how librarians provided materials to their patrons, and the faculties in those schools began adding online searching as a skill to their curricula (Fenichel & Harter, 1981). This development partly served as the impetus for MLS programs to broaden their scope to a master of library and information science (MLIS).Today, typing a name, a phrase, or a few keywords into a search box provides lists of results that impress the untrained online searcher, but often do not provide the explicit information being sought. In this cyber-driven and hyper-connected world, more than ever, librarians still function as experts schooled to extract and evaluate information from the myriad choices of electronic collections available in the contemporary marketplace. Their online searching learning curve begins in their master's coursework as library and information science students.This study categorizes the strategies and tactics observed in searches conducted by a group of graduate library and information science students. In doing so, it elucidates the searching patterns observed in terms of the "signposts" that LIS educators can expect to encounter in the searches that they ask their students to perform.Literature ReviewThe research on MLIS students and their searching habits has been sparse. Fenichel (1981) conducted a study on 72 searchers of ERIC, using 24 MLIS students enrolled in the Fundamentals of Library Information Science course to represent novice searchers. As part of her review on the research of online searching behavior, Ondrnsek (2004) identified 20 studies using experimental designs. Three of those studies, described next, used MLIS students as subjects. The first example was a comparison study by Sullivan, Borgman, and Wippern (1989) that assigned 40 library school students into two experimental treatment groups and used search intermediaries as the control group. In another study cited in the Ondrusek review, Hsieh-Yee (1993) examined search experience and subject knowledge using 30 newly-trained library school students and 32 professional searchers. Vaughn (1993), the third study cited, recruited 61 students mostly from library science curricula to examine searching techniques crossed with prior search experience and gender.Two other studies from Finland used students in library and information studies programs. Iivonen and Sonnenwald (1998) developed a model of search term selection as observed in searchers before their subjects went online. The authors characterized the process as one in which "searchers step into various discourses" and must navigate "many ways of thinking about a topic" (p. 313). Their study included 24 professional searchers and eight undergraduate information studies students who had received instruction in online searching. Vakkari (2000) showed how information science students progressed through problem stages while preparing a research proposal connected to their choice of search terms and tactics.Nicholson (2005) reported on the state of generalist search education in library schools and identified skills and knowledge areas for expert searching in medical libraries that apply broadly to strategies and tactics that should be nurtured in MLIS programs. Namely, he discussed identifying and clarifying an information need; understanding databases; developing a reflective, iterative, and heuristic search strategy; and evaluating and preparing results to meet the user's need (p. 63).To date, researchers of online searching have accumulated a broad corpus of findings from past investigations that inform new research, and a significant proportion of their findings have been classified into typologies that identify distinctive strategies and tactics. For this study, strategies were defined as "a plan for the whole search" (Bates, 1979, p. …