If I may be allowed to do a little armchair analysis, these statistics seem to me to be based only on the initial search, i.e. when people first come to the catalog and type their search into the search box. If we want to measure the actual use of a catalog, it should be continued to include the hyperlinks based on the headings within the records. Therefore, if somebody thinks "I want Roman history in the time of Cicero," they would probably type in "roman history cicero" and get something like this: (this link searches princeton's catalog as a general keyword search, I think it will work)
http://catalog.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?SAB1=roman+history+cicero&BOOL1=all+of+these&FLD1=Keyword+Anywhere+%28GKEY%29&GRP1=AND+with+next+set&SAB2=&BOOL2=all+of+these&FLD2=Keyword+Anywhere+%28GKEY%29&GRP2=AND+with+next+set&SAB3=&BOOL3=all+of+these&FLD3=Keyword+Anywhere+%28GKEY%29&PID=UKW7ypc9EtTUuUe2aXbiQ0_MkZ&SEQ=20080206045027&CNT=50&HIST=1
and the user should be able to find the heading(s) that they really want; in this case: Rome --History --Republic, 265-30 B.C. (This is how the catalog is supposed to deal with natural language questions)
In this example, the correct heading doesn't come up until record 15 (an earlier record has a "Fiction" example), so many users would probably have given up before finding the correct heading. Consequently, I would consider this an example of a failed search.
In any case, I would think that a valid way of looking at the use of the catalog is how these headings are used: do people search first on keyword "mark twain" and then click on "Twain, Mark, 1835-1910" when they find a correct record? If so, something like this should be considered mostly a successful search. Very few people, including experienced catalogers, know the precise form of a name, title or subject heading, and will mostly opt for keyword as an initial search.
If I am wrong in my assumption and the statistics are not based only on the initial search, but actually includes all the hypertext heading links, then this would be a serious problem for the catalog, since it would mean that people are not clicking on the headings once they are in a record. In other words, if somebody searches "leo tolstoi" and they see a relevant record with "Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910" and they do not click on that link, then this would indicate that there is something that needs to be fixed.
Jim Weinheimer
> Actual stats are at
> <http:/
> /lib.tamu.
> edu/direct
> ory/bponsf
> or/opac-us
> age-stats/
> Count%20of
> %20first%2
> 0web%20searches%20-%20staff%20and%20public.xls/view>. Duh!
>
> Bennett
>
> >>> On 2/5/2008 at 12:54 PM, Bennett Ponsford
> <BPonsfor_at_LIB-GW.TAMU.EDU> wrote:
> > 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 Wed Feb 06 2008 - 05:22:46 EST