Factors affecting online bibliographic retrieval: A conceptual framework for research

This article presents a conceptual framework for the organization of factors (independent variables) affecting online bibliographic retrieval; the variables were collected from major sources. The first part describes the various roles that variables play in a research study. The second part gives the conceptual framework for the factors with examples of individual variables for illustration. We consider the following elements of the total retrieval situation: the setting, the user, the request, the database, the search system, the searcher, the search process, and the search outcome. For each of these elements (excluding search outcome) a detailed list of variables is given in the Appendix. The variables are organized in a table according to themes that are applicable across elements.