Physicians have information needs related to academic research and clinical practice but encounter difficulties seeking appropriate medical resources and information. The goal of this study is to develop a search system to support Korean physicians’ information needs. To access sources to meet the identified need, in-depth interviews were conducted, and MediSearching, a new search system, was developed accordingly. To verify its usefulness and to obtain users’ suggestions, interviews were conducted and feedback was solicited via collected test searches. The initial set of interviews indicated that physicians’ information needs and search behaviors differed by type of hospital and clinical department. Physicians in university hospitals with a greater need for research materials searched for academic articles, whereas physicians in specialty hospitals or primary care clinics with a stronger need for materials related to clinical practice asked their colleagues for information. Consequently, MediSearching was designed to satisfy both groups’ needs, and the test search provided useful search results compared with existing services. Korean physicians have previously had to repeat their search process on separate sites that provide different services according to type of information and search method. MediSearching may reduce this inconvenience and add documents in various formats and languages.
In this study, we investigated the information users' needs and information seeking behavior in the field of science and technology. We found that the science and technology researchers most frequently needed information while conducting the research & development related tasks and drafting research papers. The researchers attributed the main sources of research ideas to be the communication among colleagues and the literature review. The researchers's most preferred information sources were digital libraries, web search engines, and academic information portal. In conclusion, the science and technology researchers regarded the online use of electronic materials as the primary source of information. We hope that this investigation reported herein to be the foundation for developing user-centered information services for the science and technology discipline.