Because users' needs, especially potential and vague needs, are not always clear, they need to be analyzed to get a complete and clear expression.
When analyzing user needs, we should be clear about the following issues:
(1) Analyze the purpose of topic retrieval
There are usually several types:
1) To start a scientific research or undertake an engineering design, it is necessary to conduct a comprehensive literature survey on the subject, select the required information from it, and prepare a feasibility report, plan and task book, etc.
For such a subject, it is necessary to select a secondary literature database with a long life and a wide range of related majors, select relevant literature on the basis of comprehensive retrospective retrieval, and then re-acquire the literature.
2) Solve a technical problem and find the key technical data.
For such a subject, we should choose engineering technology database or patent database.
3) Understand the market situation of foreign markets, products and companies, and conduct trade and technology introduction and joint venture negotiations.
Search scientific databases, understand advanced technologies, and search the matching of commercial databases such as markets, products and companies.
4) Seek reference for patent application or appraisal results.
Mainly choose domestic and foreign patent databases.
5) Find relevant information for decision-making.
According to the different nature of decision-making, comprehensive literature research is carried out, involving the latest development trends of scientific research, technical research, products and markets.
6) Find relevant documents for writing papers, etc.
Mainly academic research databases such as periodical papers and dissertations.
(2) Clarify the subject scope and professional aspects involved in the topic.
Make clear the main subject range, related subject range and interdisciplinary subject range involved in the subject, and choose according to the subject collection range of the database.
(3) Requirements for novelty of documents.
There is a high demand for literature novelty, so it is necessary to choose a database with short data updating period and fast speed.
(4) Users' requirements for the completeness and accuracy of search.
In order to meet the requirements of comprehensive retrieval, various databases need to be investigated, and in order to meet the requirements of fast and accurate retrieval, the database with the most specific subject range should be selected. After defining the retrieval requirements, it is necessary to analyze the specific content of the user's theme, which is the key to correctly select the retrieval words and logical operators, and will determine the quality of the retrieval strategy and affect the retrieval effect.
Theme analysis is to analyze the theme concepts of user topics, express these theme contents with certain concept words, and clarify the logical relationship between concepts. Topic analysis must pay attention to:
The concept of (1) should be expressed accurately. Grasp the substantive content of the topic and analyze several concept groups in the topic.
(2) Find out the core concept plane and exclude irrelevant concept planes, including meaningless concepts and repetitive concepts. Users sometimes think that the more concept groups are selected, the finer the logical grouping is, and the more targeted the retrieval results are. In fact, too many strict concept combinations are likely to lead to a large number of missed inspections, or even zero results. Therefore, it is sometimes necessary to simplify the logical relationship and reduce the concept groups to improve the retrieval effect.
(3) Find out the hidden important concepts. For example, intelligence test implies concepts such as ability test, attitude test and creativity test. Indexes in databases often use words that refer to specific terms. Users don't know much about indexing rules, and often list more abstract concepts, ignoring the concept of referring to specific terms.
(4) Clarify the cross relationship between conceptual planes, that is, clarify the relationship between logical AND, logical OR or logical NOT. Which concepts can be used to expand the search scope and which can be used as keywords to further narrow the search scope. Clarifying these logical relationships is helpful to compile correct retrieval formulas.