Seeking beyond with IntegraL: A user study of sense-making enabled by anchor-based virtual integration of library systems

This article presents a user study showing the effectiveness of a linked-based, virtual integration infrastructure that gives users access to relevant online resources, empowering them to design an information-seeking path that is specifically relevant to their context. IntegraL provides a lightweight approach to improve and augment search functionality by dynamically generating context-focused "anchors" for recognized elements of interest generated by library services. This article includes a description of how IntegraL's design supports users' information-seeking behavior. A full user study with both objective and subjective measures of IntegraL and hypothesis testing regarding IntegraL's effectiveness of the user's information-seeking experience are described along with data analysis, implications arising from this kind of virtual integration, and possible future directions.