Discusses library use studies that examined library catalog search failures and demonstrates types of online catalog access that can reduce the failures caused by card catalog flaws or by user search errors by half. The use of single keyword, implied Boolean, or derived truncated key retrieval is suggested. (14 references) (LRW)

Designed for use by study coordinators, library supervisors, and data collectors, this manual is the basic reference and training document from the 1982 field survey of public online catalog users and nonusers in 31 U.S. research, academic, community college, public, and governmental libraries. The field survey was coordinated by the Research…