Hunting and Gathering on the Information Savanna: Conversations on Modeling Human Search Abilities
by "Brian Clark OConnor", Jud H. Copeland, Jodi L. Kearns
Category: Social Science

Serves as the focal concept in a search for a truly functional document access system, enabling us to stand back from the present, to look into the shadows of our current designs, marvel at the breadth of human search capabilities, recognize frailties in both humans and systems, and ask new questions as we grapple with navigating our information environment. O'Connor and Copeland offer three different arenas of nontrivial information seeking for our consideration: "Submarine Chasing" explores the thoughts of a highly decorated Cold War submarine hunter. "Bounty Hunting" involves a long and convoluted search for a reported bond skipper. "Engineering Design" presents a content analysis of the few works on epistemological foundations of engineering design activity. These stories, told at great length and in considerable detail, are framed within a foundational model that links the simple act of document seeking to the broader issue of making one's way through life in the physical world. In each case, the authors ramble, mull, and stumble upon ideas without the least prior constraint, developing some threads quite fully and leaving others to tease us, but never ever throwing us to the lions.