When considering researchers’ information-seeking needs, we often focus on search, such as optimizations for Google-type library search. But what about unplanned instances of discovery? Through a study of undergraduate students and faculty, this presentation summarizes common researcher experiences with methods of serendipitous discovery within the scholarly community.

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Search,
Serendipity
& the Researcher
Experience
Lettie Y. Conrad
ER&L, 2016

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Lettie Y. Conrad
Executive Program Manager, Discovery
& Access
At SAGE, we take seriously our
obligation to ensure readers get to the
SAGE content they need as smoothly
and effectively as possible wherever
their starting point and regardless of
their device.

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Credit: Wikipedia, railroad switch
SAGE Reader Pathways

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SAGE White Papers
Lettie Conrad & Alan Maloney
http://bit.ly/23Z99d4

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Expecting the Unexpected
What do users need beyond search?
How are those needs and expectations formed?
Does demography or context impact these expectations?
How are publishers servicing those indirect discovery needs?
What happens when users aren’t sure what they’re looking for?

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Research Methods
UX research Survey Interviews
Undergraduate
Students u u
Masters/PhD
Students u u
Faculty u u u
Content & Tech
Providers u

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Defining terms
• Types of search
• Known-item searching
• Exploratory searching
• Re-finding
• Don’t know what you need to know

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What is serendipity?
1. the finding of unexpected
information (relevant to the
goal or not) while engaged in
any information activity
2. the making of an intellectual
leap of understanding with
that information to arrive at
an insight.
Andre, P., Teevan, J., Dumais, S. T., ‘Discovery Is Never by Chance: Designing for
(Un)Serendipity’, C&C ‘09, October 26-30, 2009, Berkeley, California, USA

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Why does serendipity matter?
• Students and researchers re-frame their information need as
they go
• Some useful information discoveries are unintentional
• People like serendipity: it delights users
Designing for serendipity may be the holy grail
of the search experience.
Russell-Rose, T., Tate, T. (2013). Designing the Search Experience: The
Information Architecture of Discovery. Waltham, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.

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Beyond search
• Email alerts
• Following citations
• Human recommendations
• Machine recommendations / relatedness

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Recommendations as discovery
 90% faculty
 78% students
Online recommendations are about as
useful than those I receive from peers

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Context is key!
How important are the following factors when evaluating
recommended content?
• Related to my field of study
• Can access the full text
• Recognize / trust the provider

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0.00% 25.00% 50.00% 75.00% 100.00%
Listed as "also read" by other users
From a recognized / trustworthy publisher
Recommended by a peer / faculty member
From a known author / expert
Uses your search terms / keywords
Titles that look interesting / compelling
Relevant to your field
Titles that appear relevant for your studies
When presented with links to recommended content,
which factors motivate you to click on one or more such
links? (check all that apply)
Faculty Undergrads

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Content types – students
1. Journals
2. Books
3. Case studies
4. Multimedia

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Content types – faculty
1. Journals
2. Books
3. Stats / datasets
4. Conference reports

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Industry research

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The popular-personal continuum
Popular Personal
Big data Small data
Network-driven Content-driven
mass market retail
entertainment
scholarly research

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(Our) principles for serendipitous discovery
 Academic research is personal
 Content-focused, not behaviour-focused
 Point of serendipitous discovery is the current, specific
information need
 Serendipity should be unexpected

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Thank you!
Lettie Y.
Conrad
Lettie.Conrad@
sagepub.com
SAGE White Papers
http://bit.ly/23Z99d4