An analysis of web searches in a south african(final)

Introduction and Background

Methodology and Interpretation of the results

Discussion and Conclusion

Library Circulation statistics and OPAC transactions are not significantly decreasing

Year Number of loans

2000 373 773

2001 420 622

2002 501 339

2003 563 122

2004 542 154

2005 508 255

2006 444 740

2007 436 320

2008 415 995

2009 410 616

2010 424 703

2011 381 815

Circulation of items 2000-2010

Year Opac

transactions

2006 1 769 627

2007 1 646 879

2008 1 557 088

2009 1 545 516

2010 1 615 857

2011 1 537 283

Web OPAC transactions 2006-2010

Total number of OPAC transactions 2006-2011

• Why study OPAC use? Questionable role of the OPAC in terms of relevance, use and value

• Are there new ways of information seeking and are they changing the way patrons are searching the OPAC?

• How seriously should we consider calls to abandon LCSH cataloguing?

• What about the “classical functions of bibliographic control”?

• Are South African students following the same searching behaviourpatterns shown elsewhere?

• UCT implemented the Web OPAC in 1999 (Aleph® ILS system from Ex Libris)

• Since 2006 OPAC search records have been stored as Oracle tables

• Transactional Log Analysis (TLA) was rejected as a tool for data analysis in favour of SQL and other reporting tools

• No attempt was made to study or measure search success, nor measure user satisfaction

Events that are registered in the Z69 (Web OPAC events) Oracle table (Ex Libris, 2009):

• Search Command - Multi field (find-a)• Search Command - Basic search (find-b)• Search Command - CCL (find-c)• Search Command - Advanced (find-d)• Search Command - Multi base (find-m)• Scan• Refine Search• Cross sets• My Library Card• Help• SDI Profile• Save• Z39 Server Search request• Z39 Server scan request

Search = Keyword searchScan = Alphabetical Browse search

Description of the 4 Reports:

1. Types of OPAC searches

2. Browse Searches

3. Keyword Searches

4. Self mediated services in the OPAC (My Library Card) and the Help function

Searching and Browsing 2006 vs 2011

Keyword Searches

76%

Browse

24%

2006

Keyword Searches

86%

Browse

14%

2011

Types of browse searchTitle

Author

ISSN

ISBN

Journal title

Author & title

Corporate authors

Keywords from author

System number

Imprint

Words from title

Series

Publisher

Corporate authors

Keywords from author

Place of publication

Keywords from place of publication

Keywords from publisher

MeSH subjects, Subject, LC subject , Keywords from subject, Local thesaurus, LC subject subdivision

Course code

Location

Department

Shelf mark

Keywords from language code

Keywords from year

Dewey classification number

General keyword

SubjectsKnown ItemsQualificationMetadataGeneral Keywords

Type of browse search No. %

Title 745 91044.3

Author 360 17421.4

Subject 248 01014.7

Shelf mark 120 1807.1

Journal title 115 9766.9

Author & title 24 0501.4

LC subject 18 6561.1

Course code 14 8340.9

System number 5 4500.3

ISBN 5 3140.3

Top ten Web OPAC Browse searches

General keyword0%

Qualification metadata8%

Subject Searches16%

Known Item Searches76%

OPAC Browse Searches

"icts impact" AND "user""information technology impact" AND "libraries""internet" AND "information user""internet" AND "library""is branding evil""issues in Diagnosis""jazz" and "south africa""jim goes to joburg"

Actual Subject Browse searches in the OPAC showing inappropriate keyword and Boolean searching

Type of keyword search

Words

W-titles

W-authors

ISSN

ISBN

Barcode

W-series

W-publishers

W-Unif.Titles

W-place of publ

W-subjects

W-ToC

W-sublib.

W-year

W-format

W-language code

W-theses

W-notes

W-material type

W-collection

W-shelf

1. Subjects2. Known Items3. Qualification metadata4. General keywords

Type of keyword search Total Percentage

Words 3 989 423 60.8

W-titles 844 494 12.9

W-authors 809 381 12.3

W-subjects 215 963 3.3

ISSN 193 505 2.9

W-sublib. 119 463 1.8

W-year 80 819 1.2

W-format 77 804 1.2

W-language code 77 027 1.2

ISBN 73 683 1.1

Top ten web OPAC Keyword searches

General Keywords61%

Known Item Searches30%

Qualification Metadata6%

Subject searches3%

OPAC Keyword Searches

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

35,000

Self Mediated services

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

Help Function My Library card

• The study supports the trends in the literature which show decreasing use of subject searching in favour of keywords

• What is the role and importance of subject searching ? For whom?

• OPAC is rigid and unforgiving for untrained searchers

• OPACs still reflect 1.0 design in interface and ability

• Solutions?

• User studies

• User instruction

• “Hacker ethics” (Evans, W. 2009)

• Bibliobarbarism? (Berman, S. 2006)