Bry writes:
I was part of a research team at UCLA that studied searching v. browsing
techniques among 4th and 12th grade students using an online archive web
site. We found that (much to our surprise, given the prevalence of Google as
the dominant information portal) in each group of students, just as many if
not more of the subjects preferred browsing through a directory to find
specific items than entering search terms in the search box. While I don't
know if this conclusion translates to the offline environment, it was an
eye-opening discovery nonetheless. Does anyone out there know of studies
that assess offline preferences?