THE STRATEGY AND THE TACTICS FOR ONLINE S EARCHING

Search strategies is a means to make an efficient search. Among severa l studies of search strategy, Bates' ''Search Tactics'' has been often cited and introduced, but their studies have been superficial. In thi s paper, the contents of Bates' ''Search Tactics'' are examined in det ail, and we try to represent the actual online search process based up on Bates' ''Search Tactics''. The following three kinds of survey are made in order to clarify which and how tactics are used: (1) Interview with 7 searchers who belong to different types of organizations, and use different kinds of databases (2) Analysis of some online search re cords. (3) Analysis of written applications for a newspaper database d uring one year. In conclusion, Bates' tactics falls into categories an d new several tactics which often used are added. The following five f actors affect online search activities, search strategy, and search ta ctics. (1) the difficulty of search requests (2) the hinds of database s (3) the charging policy for each online search (4) the presence of t he user during the search (5) the searcher' online experience. In the limited condition, typical tactics are suggested, but in order to gene ralize the pattern of using tactics, further investigation is necessar y.