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A study of search result aggregation approaches for the digital humanities.

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Bibliographic Details
Title: A study of search result aggregation approaches for the digital humanities.
Authors: Momeni, Milad1 (AUTHOR), Hoeber, Orland1 (AUTHOR) orland.hoeber@uregina.ca
Source: Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology. Nov2025, Vol. 76 Issue 11, p1488-1507. 20p.
Subject Terms: *Internet searching, *Database searching, *Data analysis, *Questionnaires, *Academic libraries, *Reference books, *Information resources, *Surveys, *Electronic books, *User interfaces, *Information-seeking behavior, *Digital libraries, Scale analysis (Psychology), Student satisfaction, Intellect, Research funding, Cronbach's alpha, Task performance, Undergraduates, Statistical sampling, Kruskal-Wallis Test, Mann Whitney U Test, Descriptive statistics, Humanities, Analysis of variance, Statistics, Student attitudes, Comparative studies, User-centered system design, Inter-observer reliability
Geographic Terms: Saskatchewan
Abstract: Searching across diverse information platforms, such as digital humanities archives, academic digital libraries, and encyclopedias, poses challenges in managing the queries issued to each platform and synthesizing the resources discovered. While search result aggregation interfaces address this problem, how best to present the search results from different platforms in the search engine results page remains an open question. In this research, we implemented three common approaches and developed a new technique for aggregating search results across three platforms: Europeana, our University's academic library, and Wikipedia. The three common approaches (1) use tabs to switch between the platforms, (2) interleave results from each platform producing a single list, and (3) use a bento box approach to group results from each platform. The new technique organizes the search results into thematic clusters irrespective of their source platform. We designed a controlled laboratory study using a within‐subjects design and exploratory search tasks conducted in the context of digital humanities searching. We collected data from 32 student participants, focusing on utility, perceived value, and diversity of saved resources. This study provides evidence that thematic clustering can be a beneficial aggregation approach, opening opportunities for studying different ways of representing and visualizing aggregated search results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Database: Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts
Description
Abstract:Searching across diverse information platforms, such as digital humanities archives, academic digital libraries, and encyclopedias, poses challenges in managing the queries issued to each platform and synthesizing the resources discovered. While search result aggregation interfaces address this problem, how best to present the search results from different platforms in the search engine results page remains an open question. In this research, we implemented three common approaches and developed a new technique for aggregating search results across three platforms: Europeana, our University's academic library, and Wikipedia. The three common approaches (1) use tabs to switch between the platforms, (2) interleave results from each platform producing a single list, and (3) use a bento box approach to group results from each platform. The new technique organizes the search results into thematic clusters irrespective of their source platform. We designed a controlled laboratory study using a within‐subjects design and exploratory search tasks conducted in the context of digital humanities searching. We collected data from 32 student participants, focusing on utility, perceived value, and diversity of saved resources. This study provides evidence that thematic clustering can be a beneficial aggregation approach, opening opportunities for studying different ways of representing and visualizing aggregated search results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:23301635
DOI:10.1002/asi.70006