Integrated Faceted Browser and Direct Search to Enhance Information Retrieval in Text-Based Digital Libraries

Browsing and searching are two prominent paradigms in information retrieval. In the current digital library implementations, exploratory browsing is either not available as an option or commonly presented as an alphabetical listing of chosen categories depending on the scope of the digital collections. In addition, users have to switch between different information spaces for browsing and searching. This research proposes an information retrieval paradigm of integrated faceted browser and direct search interfaces for text-based digital libraries. Experimental results show that compared to a conventional alphabetical browser, the faceted browser can significantly improve the effectiveness (by 30.8%, p = .015) and efficiency (by 11.3%, p = .001) of information retrieval. Also, compared to un-integrated alphabetical browser with direct search interfaces, the integrated faceted browser with direct search interfaces can significantly improve the effectiveness of information retrieval (by 35.7%, p = .03) and bring users greater satisfaction (by 34.8%, p < .03) with the process.