Subject-Based Information Retrieval System in Digital Libraries

Abstract

Objective: Information visualization is the study of interactive depictions of abstract and data to strengthen the human cognition. Designing an appropriate information visualization system may be very useful technique for scholars, who intent to get scientific information from digital libraries. The objective of current study was to map and visualize the key-information of dissertations in academic libraries. To achieve the aim, an information retrieval system was designed to present the interactive graphic view of dissertations’ subjects in academic. Methods: An information retrieval system was designed by information visualization toolkit that presents the related subjects of dissertations in academic libraries. In addition, the satisfaction-levels of library-users were analyzed by administrating a standard questionnaire (QUIS Questionnaire). Results: The study indicated that the designed IR system helped to provide a user-friendly environment through displaying subjective relations of dissertations, overwhelming variety of colors in displaying information. Fast and easy access to the cover-to-cover information of dissertations and user-interaction facilities are the advantages of designed IR. Analysis of data furthermore indicated that the users’ satisfaction from the system was from medium to high grade. Conclusion: Designing the IR-system revealed an excessive influence on users’ satisfaction; therefore, proposing such systems for employing in academic libraries is very suitable and its implementation is necessary.