Re: Browsing percentages / analytics (Revisited)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Kyle Banerjee
> Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 7:56 PM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Browsing percentages / analytics (Revisited)
>
> How confident are that you are measuring actual searches? When I went
> to your catalog, the main search box allows keyword only.
>
> If accurate, these stats suggest your users are deranged uberdweebs --
> they prefer searching by classification over title 2 to 1 and
> searching by subject over title 80 to 1. Note that these searches
> require the advanced search screen.
>
> Another possibility is that bots are wandering around in your catalog
> skewing results or some other factor is at play.

Whenever I see a word like "uberdweebs" I immediately search it in Google
images. This time, I saw this: http://www.joslinhall.com/blog/llama.jpg
I confess I haven't seen any of my students who look quite like that, but I
have seen the same expression!:-)

The point of my post was that people *do not* have to use the advanced
search screen to do this "uberdweeb" kind of searching. What they can do is
click on the link that they see in the bibliographic record after they do a
keyword search. Therefore, they can search "assassinations italy" and find a
record with the subjects:
    * Assassination -- History -- Italy-- 20th century.
    * Assassination -- History -- Italy-- 21st century.
    * Murder -- History -- Italy-- 20th century.
    * Murder -- History -- Italy-- 21st century.
    * Political violence -- History -- Italy-- 20th century.
    * Political violence -- History -- Italy-- 21st century.

i.e. the "uberdweeb" searches that they would never think of, but they can
just click on them. This is how the catalog is supposed to work. Again, the
browsing capability is not very well implemented in my catalog.

It is a good idea about bots, however. I need to check that.

James Weinheimer  j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
via Pietro Roselli, 4
00153 Rome, Italy
voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 327
fax-011 39 06 58330992