Additional rough stats on Which search users started with (our default is "keyword sorted by relevance"). Library people use "keyword" and "title starts with" almost equally, however the public uses their most popular title search (title keyword) less than 10% of the time. I was also surprised by the number of the public who start with "expert keyword", particularly in comparison to the usage by library types.
In terms of talking to our users, we did a survey this fall and asked people whether they had last searched the catalog for something where they already knew the author or title or something on a subject. 78% of undergraduates searched by subject, whereas 64% of grad. students and 68% of faculty were looking for a known item. And the big theme of the follow-up focus groups was: simplify, simplify, simplify. What we need is a simple keyword search that guides undergraduates to what they need while not getting in the way of people who know what they're looking for.
Bennett
Bennett Claire Ponsford
Digital Services Librarian
University Libraries
Texas A&M University
bennett.ponsford_at_tamu.edu
TAMU 5000 | College Station, TX 77843
Tel. 979.845.0877 | Fax. 979.845.6238
http://library.tamu.edu
>>> On 2/5/2008 at 10:55 AM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle_at_KCOYLE.NET> wrote:
> Janet Hill wrote:
>> Repeat after me: There is no typical user. There is no typical user.
>> There is no typical user.
>> Persuade us with actual data, carefully collected, clearly defined, and
>> thoughtfully considered.
>>
>
> And in that spirit, the first question that came to my mind when I
> looked at Selden Deemer's stats was: I'd really like to know WHO did
> those searches. Not individually, but in some grouping. In particular,
> I'd like to see the stats for staff use separated from non-staff. This,
> of course, is not going to be 100% accurate because most of the time we
> don't ask people to identify themselves at public access points. But at
> least in the back rooms and on any machine with a staff sign-in. It
> could turn out that there are some important staff needs that should be
> addressed, even if those features are rarely used by the public.
>
> Then overall statistics can help us make design decisions: what
> functions have to be very efficient because they will be used
> frequently? What functions can we provide in a less efficient manner
> because they are rarely used and don't impact overall response time?
>
> --
> -----------------------------------
> Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
> ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
> fx.: 510-848-3913
> mo.: 510-435-8234
> ------------------------------------
Received on Tue Feb 05 2008 - 15:14:48 EST