Multilingual information retrieval on the Internet: A case study of Turkish users

Abstract

This study aims to answer the following research question: What information retrieval problems do Turkish Internet users face by using Turkish on the Internet?The data for this report were gathered by triangulation of three different methods: (1) e-mail questionnaire survey, (2) face-to-face interviews, and (3) participant observation of Turkish speaking respondents, in order to assess the major obstacles of retrieving Turkish language information by using Turkish on the Internet. Although a significant amount of research has been focused on multilingual information retrieval, a review of the literature reveals that this pilot study is the first initiative to draw a picture from the Turkish Internet user's point of view.