bangersandmash

This one needs a lot more thought, but is there a way to quantify the difference in technique/cognitive approaches between effective searching of structured databases and unstructured databases.

I have a bucketload of strategies that I use for navigating through structured relational databases. I’m also aware of the fact that I approach searches in a search engine like Google very differently than I approach something like the MLA international Bibliography or PSYCinfo. Part of the difference could be that I’m searching with the expectation of finding different kinds of information, another could be that I adjust my strategy in Google knowing that I will be matching against at least 100K of full text rather than abstracts and bibliographic data.

I imagine that people consciously or subconsciously structure their searchers to avoid unwanted material (even if they don’t use ‘not’ or ‘-’). I’d be very curious to know how people take a massive set of potential information like Google structure their searches to compensate for the monumental amount of off-topic material that could possibly interfere with the quality of their search results.