Scholars’ Searching for Audio-Visual Information in Archives

• This paper contributes insights into scholars’ information searching in audio-visual archives, more specifically in relation to postcolonial research projects. The paper introduces the concept of information needs based on the framework by Ingwersen. Further, the paper addresses the scholars’ search strategies and the search challenges they experienced. Insights are obtained via in-depth interviews with six scholars. The scholars adapt collection-specific search strategies and make extensive use of keyword searching. The study demonstrates the complexity of searching archives for information and how demanding searching is withrespect to requiring domain knowledge, artefactual literacy, and archival intelligence. Finally, the importance of access to the expertise of archivists is confirmed.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Information Studies (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Audio-visual archives

Information needs

Information searching

User study

Interviews

Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap

Library and Information Science

Computer Science with specialization in Human-Computer Interaction

Datavetenskap med inriktning mot människa-datorinteraktion

Människa-dator interaktion

Human-Computer Interaction

Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap

Media and Communication Studies

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)