THE DESIGN OF DATABASES AND OTHER INFORMATION RESOURCES FOR HUMANITIES SCHOLARS - THE GETTY ONLINE SEARCHING PROJECT REPORT NO 4

Based on the results of a two-year study of online searching by humanities scholars, conducted by the Getty Art History Information Program, implications are drawn for the design of information products for the humanities. Scientists and humanities scholars not only have different kinds of information needs, they also relate to their own literatures in fundamentally different ways. As a result, humanities researchers need information products that do not arise out of the conventional assumptions and framework that have produced the familiar databases and other information products in the sciences and industry. These characteristic differences of humanities scholars are first discussed; then design implications are considered in the following areas: design and content of databases, indexing vocabulary in humanities resources, and interfaces and command languages.