How Users Search the Library from a Single Search Box (Preprint)

Cory Lown, Tito Sierra, and Josh Boyer:
How Users Search the Library from a Single Search Box,
in: College & Research Libraries (Preprint)

Abstract

Academic libra­ries are turning incre­a­sin­gly to uni­fied search solu­ti­ons to sim­plify search and dis­co­very of library resour­ces. Unfortunately, very little rese­arch has been publis­hed on library user search beha­vior in sin­gle search box environ­ments. This study exami­nes how users search a large public uni­ver­sity library using a pro­mi­nent, sin­gle search box on the library web­site. The arti­cle exami­nes two semes­ters of real-world data, tota­ling nearly 1.4 mil­lion tran­sac­tions. Findings include that uni­fied library search is about more than the cata­log and arti­cles, though these pre­do­mi­nate. Additionally, a small num­ber of the most popu­lar search que­ries accounts for a dis­pro­por­tio­nate amount of the over­all que­ries. Also dis­cus­sed are the merits of ongo­ing eva­lua­tion of library user search behavior.

Siehe: http://crl.acrl.org/content/early/2012/01/09/crl-321.abstract

PDF: http://crl.acrl.org/content/early/2012/01/09/crl-321.full.pdf

via: http://distlib.blogs.com/distlib/2012/02/how-users-search-the-library-from-a-single-search-box.html