Information-Seeking Behavior in the High-Energy Physics Community

Tamar SadehSchool of Informatics, City University, London

Ex Libris

HCI conference, Prague, November 2008

2

Agenda

The high energy physics (HEP) community HEP information resources

SPIRES arXiv

The HEP survey What do HEP researchers say? The “magic spell” of SPIRES

and arXiv Conclusions

3

The high energy physics community

About 20,000 scientists Collaboration on a large, international

scale Specific needs

4

SPIRES—background

1960s: established at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC)

1974: computerized by teams from SLAC and Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY)

Today: a joint project of SLAC, DESY, and Fermilab; supported by the community

5

SPIRES

Provides access to the literature, people, institutions, research, and experiments in the fields of particle and astroparticle physics

6

7

8

9

10

11

arXiv

1991: founded at Los Alamos National Laboratories by Professor Paul Ginsparg

2001: moved to Cornell Serves as a repository

for preprints in physics, mathematics, statistics, computer science, and quantitative biology

October 2008: 500,000 articles

12

13

14

15

SPIRES and arXiv: community resources

Users generate primary and secondary content

Users take part in building tools and proofing content

Users are involved Resources are freely available to all Web 2.0 way before the term was coined!

16

The HEP Survey

Took place in early summer 2007 2,115 replies Multiple-choice and open-ended questions

GENTIL-BECCOT, Anne; MELE, Salvatore; HOLTKAMP, Annette; O'CONNELL, Heath B.; BROOKS, Travis C. (2008). Information resources in high-energy physics: Surveying the present landscape and charting the future course. arXiv:0804.2701 [online]. Available from www: http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.2701

17

18

19

20

Issues addressed in open-ended replies

Coverage Means of finding the information Effort required to find and obtain

information Related services

22

Coverage

Content: is everything there? What else is there?

Focus on HEP: advantage or disadvantage?

Availability of full text: is it freely available? Which version of it?

Period of coverage: are old materials available?

Type of materials: what about presentations, lecture notes, datasets?

23

Means of finding the information

Search Search for a “known” item Exploratory search

New submissions Navigation through a mesh of links

24

Effort required to find and obtain information

Search interface: is it easy enough? Is it sophisticated enough?

Search engine: is it fast? Is it accurate? Is it tolerant? Does it search the full text?

Overall experience: how long does it take to find and obtain the desired materials?

25

Services

New submissions References and citations Citation analysis Bibliographic tools

26

What is a good search interface?

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” About 30% of the respondents addressed

this question SPIRES: respondents are divided equally arXiv: ration of 1:10—most do not like the

search interface

27

Three resources, one framework

“I use SPIRES, arXiv, and Google in equal measure. SPIRES is the easiest way to find HEP papers; arXiv is the easiest way to find new papers; Google is the easiest way to find everything else.”

“The interplay between SPIRES and arXiv is a beautiful scenario.”

28

The “magic spell”

What makes SPIRES and arXiv so valuable? Created, maintained, and owned by the

community Free and easily accessible Focused on the community’s needs

29

Respondents say that clearly

“SPIRES is doing a wonderful service to the community.”

“SPIRES was a historical moment in science. Other fields should use it as a prototype.”

“SPIRES is simply the way we search for articles in HEP. Period. No competition. No competition needed.”

30

“the most is the tremendous service it [arXiv] does to the community for giving immediate access to new works and for the massive store it is”

“It's hard to imagine doing physics without arXiv.” “It would take a few articles to do justice to the

historical role of arXiv in the evolution of scientific information mediation… The speed, freedom and availability of published research results is by far the most important contribution of arXiv.”

31

Conclusions

HEP community resources are an extraordinary achievement

Content, user experience, and services are all important; however, the community effort makes the difference

SPIRES and arXiv need to adapt to the expectations of the “Google age” researchers to ensure continued success

Thank you!