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How do the experts do it? The use of ethnographic methods as an aid to understanding the cognitive processing and retrieval of large bodies of text

This paper explores an important problem in information retrieval: that of rapidly increasing amounts of full-text storage that is difficult to file and retrieve effectively. The author suggests that a possible avenue for improving full-text retrieval would include in-depth studies of the ways in which individual users cope with large amounts of written information, stored chiefly on paper in their offices. Relevant literature in cognitive psychology is reviewed and some recent and continuing studies are described that have used anthropological methods to approach this problem. It is argued that historians are a good group to study, due to their reliance on the examination and processing of texts, and the broad scope of their inquiries. Examinations of the ways in which this one group of information workers categorize documents could lead us to a better understanding of human problems in processing and retrieving textual information.