This study investigates user search behavior on Europeana, focusing on search tasks, subject content, and motives for information retrieval. It categorizes users into 'culture vultures' and 'culture snackers' and identifies various search task types, including specific-item and general topical searches. The results aim to inform the design of more effective cultural heritage information systems and improve understanding of user needs and information utilization.

1. Europeana:
WhatUsersSearch for andWhy
Paul Clough1,Timothy Hill2, Monica Lestari Paramita1, and Paula Goodale1
1 University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
2 Europeana,The Hague, Netherlands

2. Introduction
 Users from diverse backgrounds are coming to
cultural heritage websites and information
services with increasingly varied goals, tasks and
information needs (Skov & Ingwersen, 2008).
 Having a better understanding of the users, their
goals and tasks, can help inform the design of
more effective information systems.
 The aim of this study is to investigate:
 the broad type of search tasks
 the subject content of searches
 motives for searching and uses of the information
found
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3. Europeana Portal: http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en

4. Research
Questions
What information do
users search for using
Europeana?
What do users use this
information for?
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5. RelatedWork
Information
needs in cultural
heritage
 Information seeking behaviours of cultural
heritage experts were studied in Amin et al.
(2008).
 A majority of search tasks were complex information
gathering (e.g., finding information to compare
similarities and differences between objects).
 Meanwhile, Skov (2013) found that casual users
(e.g., general museum visitors) often have different
(and less-complex) information needs
 They often search for well-defined known items, and
do fewer exploratory tasks.
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6. RelatedWork
Europeana
users
 Previous surveys/studies carried out in Europeana
have also identified two distinct user types,
referred to as “culture vultures” and “culture
snackers”.
 The “culture vultures” are dedicated enthusiasts
and professionals:
 They have domain expertise and likely lifelong
enthusiasts of cultural heritage.
 The “culture snackers” are more representative of
the novice or general user:
 They come with lower levels of technical/domain
expertise and typically engage for general interest.
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7. Methodology
 We designed a pop-up web survey in order to
gather responses from actual Europeana users as
they carried out their search activities.
 We proposed a scheme for categorising the search
tasks and information use in Europeana.
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8. Pop-upSurvey
Questions
(1/2)
1. How often do you visit Europeana?
2. How would you identify yourself?
3. How did you get to Europeana today?
4. What information are you looking for right now?
5. Why are you looking for this information?
6. After finding this information, you will: _______
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9. Pop-upSurvey
Questions
• (e.g. “I want to find an image of the Mona Lisa”, “I’m
trying to explore what’s available in Europeana on World
War I”, “I am looking for photographs of Sheffield in the
1980s”, “I am looking for artworks by Leonardo daVinci”,
or “Don’t know or nothing specific”)
Q4: “What information are you looking for?”
• (e.g., “To create a presentation for my student class”, “To
write an article”, “To help plan a visit toTurin and want to
know about artworks to visit whilst there”, “To learn
about the history of English folk music”, “General interest
/ no specific reason”)
Q5: “Why are you looking for this information?”
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10. Pop-upSurvey
Questions
(2/2)
7. How would you rate your level of subject knowledge
for your current activity?
8. For your current activity, please rate the importance
of the following Europeana functionalities: _______
9. What other features could be added / improved to
help you complete your current activity?
10. If you have any other comments about Europeana:
_______
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11. Results
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12. 12
 The pop-up survey ran
for 2 weeks (21 March –
4 April 2017)
 240 users of Europeana
from 48 different
countries
 48.8% participants came
directly to the site,
34.2% arrived via a
search engine link, and
10.8% via social media
link and a teaching
resources link

13. Participants
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14. Q4:“Whatinformationareyoulookingforrightnow?”
Mean=10.1 words (min=1, max=49)
I am trying to explore images of
objects and monuments from ancient
Italy and the Roman Empire.
I am looking for the
1919 film "Les fetes de
la victoire".
I'm looking for traces of
Russian émigrés from 1917
to the 1930s : art,
photographs, or maps.
I´m trying to find
reusable patterns to
use in a fabric
screenprinting project.
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15. Q5:“Whyareyoulookingforthisinformation?”
Mean=8.3 words (min=1, max=72)
To write a book.I want to use the excerpt to
illustrate a university lecture.
I am going to attend a
course in screenprinting
this autumn and need to
prepare some ideas.To help plan an exhibition for
an International summit.
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16. ResearchQuestion 1
“What information do users
search for using Europeana?”
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17. Analysis of the
Search
Requests
 We performed two different categorisations:
1. Categorisation based on search tasks
2. Categorisation based on mode/facet analysis
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18. SearchTasks Definitions Examples
Specific-item search Search for specific item (i.e., known-
item) typically expressed precisely
“I am looking for the 1919 film ‘Les
fetes de la victorie’.”
By named author Search for information by a specific
named author or provider
“to look for paintings by Henriette
Ronner”, “I am searching for …
artifacts from the Regional
Archaeological Museum Plovdiv”
Specific-subject search Find information for specified (or
named) subject (i.e., person, place,
location, etc.) forming the main
subject of the request
“I am looking for pictures of
Stuttgart”
General topical search Find information for general subject “Italian medieval illuminations”,
“Looking at examples of art made
by women”
Browsing or exploring Used to identify searches where the
user has no specific goal
“I am just browsing your
collections”
Ambiguous or unclear The search request is unclear or
difficult to determine category
“I am anOpera lover”, “book”
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19. Categorisation
ofSearchTasks
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20. Categorisation
Based on
Mode/Facet
Analysis
Armitage and Enser (1996): analysing the
subject content of user requests for still
and moving visual images.
Panofsky-Shatford’s modes of image
analysis in the form of mode/facet
analysis.
 Who, What, Where and When
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21. 21

22. Specific General
Person/group E.g., “Saint Francis of Assisi” E.g., “working women”, “historical figure”
Object/thing E.g., “Prelude, Op. 28, No. 7, by
Frederic Chopin”
E.g., “paintings”
Location E.g., “Spain”, “Norfolk” E.g., “public places”
Event/action E.g., “Great War”, “black death” E.g., “working”, “privatisation of school system”
Time E.g., “1940”, “XIX century” E.g., “medieval”
General subject E.g., “art”, “history”
Creator E.g., “paintings byVan Gogh”
Provider E.g., “I am searching for images from the Regional Archeological Museum Plovdiv.”
Nationality E.g., “Icelandic artworks”
Language E.g., “books written in Italian”
Availability E.g., “free open-source 3d models”
Response E.g., “looking for a nice painting”
Medium E.g., “image”, “video”, “text”
AdditionalCodesPanofsky-ShatfordCodes
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23. Example (1/3)
“I am looking for
artworks by
Leonardo daVinci”
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24. Example (1/3)
“I am looking for
artworks by
Leonardo daVinci”
Creator
General
object/thing
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25. Example (2/3)
“I’m looking for GreatWar
photographs taken on
exactly 100 years ago”
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26. Example (2/3)
“I’m looking for GreatWar
photographs taken on
exactly 100 years ago”
Specific event
Specific time
Medium
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27. Example (3/3)
“I am looking for images
of cats in art or culture to
post about on my blog -
but they must be in the
public domain as I am
scrupulous about image
rights”
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28. Example (3/3)
“I am looking for images
of cats in art or culture to
post about on my blog -
but they must be in the
public domain as I am
scrupulous about image
rights”
Medium
General
object/thing
Availability
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30. Categorisation
Based on
Mode/Facet
Analysis
The most common combinations are:
 “Creator + Specific object/thing”
(9 occurrences)
 E.g. “I want to find some information about a
painting ofWillem van de Helde: ‘Het kanonschot’”
 “Creator + General object/thing”
(8 occurrences)
 E.g. “I am looking for artworks by Leonardo da
Vinci”
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31. ResearchQuestion 2
“Why are users searching
for this information?”
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32. Categorisation
of Motives and
Uses
 We created a new scheme to categorise the
information use for Europeana:
 To create a new work
 Professional activity
 This category captures the activity of academics
and CH professionals where the focus is purely
research or monitoring oriented, and no precise
output from the search is anticipated
 Personal interest
 Teaching
 Other
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33. Categorisation
of Motives and
Use
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34. Categorisation
of Motives and
Use:
“Create new
work” (37.1%)
 Task-closure:
 83.9% were involved in “open-ended” tasks (e.g.
scholarly research”), 14.9% in “closed” tasks.
 Modification:
 36.8% represent “unmediated” cases, i.e. the
information found will be used without
modification (e.g., to illustrate a presentation), and
57.5% are “remediated” cases.
 Type of output:
 64.4% would be textual in form (e.g., academic
article), 6.9% in a visual form, 3.4% in audiovisual
form
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35. 35

36. Conclusion
and Future
Work
 We have investigated the type of searches conducted on
Europeana and common uses of the information found.
 We have proposed a scheme for categorising search tasks
and information use in the cultural heritage domain.
 These results help better understand search tasks more
generally in cultural heritage across a wider range of users.
 Future work is planned to further validate the
categorisation scheme and conduct a deeper analysis of the
current dataset.
 We also plan to gain deeper insights into aspects of users’
search activity using data derived from other sources (e.g.,
search logs, and diary studies).
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37. Acknowledgments
This study was funded
by the European
Commission under
‘Europeana DSI-2’.
We thank Europeana
users for participating
in the online survey.
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38. Thank you
Dataset available for download from:
http://bit.ly/europeanaSearchTasks
https://doi.org/10.15131/shef.data.5411194
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