What? - Collaborative Web Search: Who, What, Where, When, and Why - page 21

Table 3.5: Twidale et al. ( 1997 ) identified several tactics used by students in a university library
for collaborating on specific aspects of the process and products of searching.
Tactic

Search
Stage

Description

Do You Know? Process asking a known individual for a specific piece of infor-

mation or for assistance with a specific aspect of the
search process

Does Anyone Know? Process broadcasting a request for help to a large audience

rather than to a specific individual, such as via an email
list

Who Might Know? Process attempting to identify a specific expert who might have

the desired process or product knowledge

Remote Help Process interaction with a specific, though personally un-

known, individual whose job is to provide information
seeking assistance, such as a remote reference librarian

Joint Searching Process sharing a computer terminal with another user or users,

working together on the same task

Coordinated Searching Process working with another user (each with his own com-

puter terminal) on related tasks, and exchanging in-
formation as needed

Brainstorming Process working with others to generate new approaches when

current information seeking strategies are unsuccessful

Making Contacts Process meeting other library users with shared interests who

might assist a user with future information needs, such
as noticing that someone else has checked out the same
topic as they did

Personal Recommenda- Products sharing a found item with known individuals who

might find it interesting tion

Annotation Products augmenting found information with personal insights

or comments that might later be useful to others

Releasing an Information
Package

Products assembling the results of a complex search into a form

that could be reused by others (which could then en-
able a later user to utilize Bates' “bibble” tactic)

at each of these stages, described in Table 3.7.
By studying users in traditional libraries and users of single-user Web search tools, Bates,
Twidale et al., Morris, and Evans and Chi were able to identify what specific aspects of an in-
formation seeking task invite collaboration. Although some of the specifics of their classifications