The Effect of Clients Tasks on Librarians Database Selection

Task-based information searching views a user''s task §as a central factor for understanding information-§seeking behaviors. To investigate the role of tasks §in information searching, particularly in the §business domain, this book analyzes the database §selection process used by librarians from the §perspective of users'' tasks. The first part of the §study developed an inventory of 30 business tasks §and 144 associated questions through content §analysis of Harvard Business School cases and other §materials. The second part conducted a survey §among 29 business librarians in academic §institutions. A database selection §process was modeled to describe how five §task-related criteria - company size, company type, §industry sector, geographical setting, and business §stage - influence database selection. The findings §should be useful for academic business librarians §for database selection for a specific query or for §collection development or information science §researchers who are interested in task-based §information searching.