Select Research Projects

InfoSpace, Inc Web Project

InfoSpace, Inc is a major Web company with the Dogpile, Metacrawler and Webcrawler metasearch engines. Overlap studies, usability and transaction log analysis are being conducted in collaboration with Dr. Sherry Koshman (Pitt-SIS) and Jim Jansen (Penn State University.).

Vivisimo Web Project 

Vivisimo  is a cluster-based Web search engine that dynamically produces a cluster tree to organize Web search results. A transaction log analysis of  user query data and cluster use was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Sherry Koshman (Pitt-SIS) and Jim Jansen (Penn State University.).
 

ALA Multitasking Project

Funded by the American Library Association 2004 Carroll Preston Barber Research Grant. The project examines multitasking information behaviors by public library users.

Multitasking Web Project

Funded by a 2004 University of Pittsburgh Research Grant. This project is investigating multitasking Web search behaviors, including information task ordering and searching.

Evolutionary Human Information Behavior Project

The major goal of this exploratory research is to model the holistic evolution of HIB over human existence.

Biographical Sketch

Amanda Spink is a faculty member at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. She has a B.A. (Australian National University); Graduate Diploma of Librarianship (University of New South Wales); M.B.A. in Information Technology Management (Fordham University), and a Ph.D. in Information Science (Rutgers University - School of Communication, Information and Library Studies).

Research and Publications

Dr. Spink’s research focuses on theoretical and applied studies modeling human information behavior, Web research and interactive/cognitive information retrieval (IR), including digital libraries studies, relevance studies, multitasking information behavior studies, evolutionary human information behavior, and information science theory.

The National Science Foundation, American Library Association (ALA), Andrew R. Mellon Foundation, Vivisimo, Alta Vista, NEC, Excite, FAST, University of North Texas, The Pennsylvania State University, University of Pittsburgh and Lockheed Martin have sponsored her research.

Amanda has published over 220 journal articles, refereed conference papers, books and book chapters, including articles in the following interdisciplinary range of journals:

• Annual Review of Information Science and Technology

• Australian Library Journal

• Collection Management

• Cyber-Psychology and Behavior

• First Monday

• Health Informatics

• Health Information and Libraries Journal

• IEEE Computer

• IEEE Engineering Management

• Information Processing and Management

• Information Research

• Informing Science Journal

• Interacting with Computers

• International Journal of Heath Care and Technology

• International Journal of Information Management

• Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy

• Journal of Documentation

• Journal of Information Management

• Journal of Informing Science

• Journal of Medical Systems

• Journal of Oncology Management

• Journal of Quality Health Care

• Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

• Journal of Web Engineering

• Library and Information Science Research

• Library Trends

• Libri

• Managed Care Quarterly

• Medical Decision Making

• New Review of Information Behavior Research

• Online Information Review

• Reference Librarian

• User Modeling and User Adapted Interaction

• Webology

• World Wide Web Journal

Dr. Spink has presented papers at an interdisciplinary range of conferences, including:

• ACM CIKM

• ACM Digital Libraries

• ACM Multimedia

• ACM SIGIR

• American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST)

• British Computer Society - IR Conference (BCS-IR)

• Canadian Association for Information Science (CAIS)

• Conceptions of Library and Information Science (COLIS)

• Euro/Informs Joint International Conference

• HCI International

• Human Behavior and Evolution

• Human Factors

• IEEE Information Technology: Coding and Computing (ITCC)

• IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics

• Information Seeking in Context (ISIC)

• Internet Computing

• Internet Research

• Information Resource Management Association (IRMA)

• National Online Meeting

• National Research Council - Transportation Research Conference

• SCI: Systematics, Cybernetics and Informatics

• Search Engine Meeting

• WebNet

Dr. Spink is a member of the following journal editorial boards: Information Processing and Management, Journal of Documentation, Journal of Information Systems Education, Journal of Informing Science, and Information Research.

Amanda has edited special issues of the following journals:  

• Journal of Documentation (2007). Human Information Behavior. Co-editor Dr. Allen Foster (Aberystwyth) [Forthcoming]

• Journal of Web Engineering (2005). Web Search Effectiveness. Co-editor Dr. Carolyn Watters (Halifax) [Forthcoming]

• Journal of the American Society for Information Sciences and Technology (2004) Information Seeking Research, 55(8/9).

• Co-editor Dr. Charles Cole (McGill)

• Information Processing and Management (2002) Information Retrieval in Context, 38(5). Co-editor Dr. Colleen Cool (Queens)

• Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology  (2001) Web Research, 53(2).

• Library and Information Science Research (2001) Everyday Life Information Seeking, 23(4). Co-editor Dr. Charles Cole (McGill)

• Information Research (2000) Web Research, October.

• Information Processing and Management (2000) Information Retrieval and Web Research, 36(2). Co-editor with Dr. Jain Qin (Syracuse)

• Informing Science Journal (2000) Information Science Research, 3(2).