  This paper presents AGNES, the first information retrieval system for
archaeological grey literature, allowing full-text search of these long
archaeological documents.
  This search system has a web interface that allows archaeology professionals
and scholars to search through a collection of over 60,000 Dutch excavation
reports, totalling 361 million words. We conducted a user study for the
evaluation of AGNES's search interface, with a small but diverse user group.
The evaluation was done by screen capturing and a think aloud protocol,
combined with a user interface feedback questionnaire. The evaluation covered
both controlled use (completion of a pre-defined task) as well as free use
(completion of a freely chosen task). The free use allows us to study the
information needs of archaeologists, as well as their interactions with the
search system. We conclude that: (1) the information needs of archaeologists
are typically recall-oriented, often requiring a list of items as answer; (2)
the users prefer the use of free-text queries over metadata filters, confirming
the value of a free-text search system; (3) the compilation of a diverse user
group contributed to the collection of diverse issues as feedback for improving
the system. We are currently refining AGNES's user interface and improving its
precision for archaeological entities, so that AGNES will help archaeologists
to answer their research questions more effectively and efficiently, leading to
a more coherent narrative of the past.
