Have we ever been in a position where we do not do anything, but what we want comes to us by itself? It is called “serendipity”, and when we talk about serendipity, it will remind us of a film, played by John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale, telling about a love story that starts from a “coincidence”. Likewise, when we surf in the cyberspace, looking for scientific information, this serendipity often happens.
In terms of finding information, finding the right one unintentionally is a delightful thing, or it means you are in luck. For example, when we focus on searching scientific information, and suddenly the information we have been searching for appears, it is called serendipity of information. Most information serendipitously found is in line with information needed compared to information we seek intentionally. Therefore, many search engines such as e-journal libraries encourage serendipity to happen by displaying information with the same topic.
To support their duties as an instructor and also a researcher, the lecturers search for the information they need. Based on the results of previous research, e-journal is one of the main sources of scientific information used by lecturers to complete their work because journals are considered to have abundant scientific information and have undergone several stages of validity or feasibility from the editorial team. Therefore, there is a higher chance of serendipity to happen in the search for information in e-journals conducted by lecturers.
This research was conducted with a survey of 130 lecturers from each faculty at Universitas Airlangga, who accessed information on Universitas Airlangga e-journal service. Almost all lecturers access all e-journal databases provided by the library, but most lecturers access the Oxford Academia Journal (23.8%).
The e-journal service in Airlangga Library encourages serendipity for lecturers when accessing it. Unair Library e-journal search system is designed to enable the potential for serendipity. The e-journaling search engine system has ensured that not only the right information is presented at the right time but also that a large amount of information. The information presented is following the keywords or information needed by the lecturers.
Seeing the influence of search engines on the possibility of information serendipity, the information search system providers must use their strengths to gain insight into the content of information needed by users. Serendipity of information must be of particular concern for information search engine service providers (not only e-journals but applies to other information search engine service providers) because there are still very few that place the potential of serendipity of information search as a top priority
Serendipity of information also depends on experience
The potential for serendipity is experienced by each lecturer when searching for articles on library e-journal services. But the occurrence of serendipity is not only driven by the system of the information search engine, but also from the experience of the searcher in exploring information in the search engine system. Lack of experience can also result in the low potential for serendipity, and on the other hand, vast experience in finding information increases this potential. Serendipity required different abilities to search for a term in randomly generated information that might be related to the initial search.
When the information seeker has a lot of experience in the search process, it will be able to “move swiftly” in the exploration of information and get the right information matching to their needs. In this case, the process of finding information was done by lecturers, who often carry out the process of searching for teaching materials, or references for their research daily. So their skills and experience in information exploration can be considered very high as they are accustomed to do so. It is shown from the results of this research that all indicators of occurring serendipity in the process of finding information in library e-journal services are in high and very high category.
Author: Dyah Puspitasari Srirahayu
Details of this research can be viewed in our work at
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2608/
Srirahayu, Dyah Puspitasari, Irfana, Maisyah Su’adaa, Mannan, Endang Fitriyah, and Anugrah, Esti Putri (2019). Serendipity on information searching behavior in use e-journal collection. Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal), 2608.
