I would have thought that training sessions and library staff searching
are more likely sources of 'skew' on the stats than bots. What are the
total numbers we are talking here (i.e. how significant would
non-standard activity have to be to skew the results?). You might also
find that this kind of discussion leads to some skew - I've now done
several types of browse on your catalogue to see how it works :)
Owen
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of James Weinheimer
Sent: 15 February 2008 09:50
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] 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
Received on Fri Feb 15 2008 - 05:06:02 EST
