Introduction: Few studies document the information searching behaviour of users with cognitive impairments. This paper therefore addresses the effect of dyslexia on information searching in a database with no tolerance for spelling errors and no query-building aids. The purpose was to identify effective search interface design guidelines that…

Big data sets and powerful computing capacity have transformed scholarly inquiry across many disciplines. While the impact of data-intensive research methodologies is perhaps most distinct in the natural and social sciences, the humanities have also benefited from these new analytical tools. While full-text data is necessary to study topics such…

This study explores student use of the mobile Web in general and expectations for an academic library's mobile Web site in particular through focus groups with students at Kent State University. Participants expressed more interest in using their mobile Web device to interact with library resources and services than anticipated. Results showed an…

An online questionnaire survey was distributed amongst the Petherick Readers of the National Library of Australia, a user group of scholars and researchers. The survey asked questions about the readers' use and appreciation of the NLA catalogue. This group of users clearly appreciated the library catalogue and demonstrated that there are still…

This study explored the feasibility of scanning the OCLC Online Union Catalog (OLUC) to create subject heading validation files. Concluded that automatically generated subject heading files were practical and that such files could be used to verify subject heading strings constructed by catalogers, update subject headings in catalog maintenance,…

Describes a statistical study of three databases, conducted at Iowa State University, on holding links between citation databases and the online catalog. Provides insights into the construction and quality control of citation databases and online catalogs, and identifies a new issue of continued maintenance of ISBNs and ISSNs for catalogers.…

Describes the University of California at Berkeley's participation in the TREC (Text Retrieval Conference) interactive track experiments. Highlights include results of searches on two systems, Cheshire II and ZPRISE; system design goals and implementation; precision and recall results; search questions by topic and system; and results of…

Modern academic libraries have a great number of information resources available online in the form of electronic catalogs, books, journals, and subject subscription databases. To determine whether users can easily retrieve the information they are seeking, academic librarians conduct usability testing of their libraries' Web sites. There has been…

Describes a study conducted to determine the main differences in online catalog searching styles and results among library staff, faculty, and patrons at Adelphi University (New York). Transaction log analysis, questionnaires, zero hit searches, keyword, author, title, subject, and other search strategies were evaluated to determine patterns of…

Presents highlights of research that used industrywide surveys, focus groups, personal interviews, and industry-published data to explore the future of electronic information delivery in libraries. Topics discussed include CD-ROMs; prices; full-text products; magnetic tape leasing; engineering and technical literature; connections between online…

In the past decade, academic libraries have struggled with the design of an effective library home page. Since librarians' mental models of information architecture differ from those of their patrons, usability assessments are necessary in designing a user-centered home page. This study details a usability sequence of card sort and paper and…

Two statistical measures are used to compare the Library of Congress and Dewey Decimal Classification systems by applying them to the library science portions of the two systems using a database drawn from MARC records. It is concluded that the measures characterize two different properties of dispersion. (Author/EM)

The statistics that are presented are based on a one percent systematic sample of the OCLC online union catalog as of January 1980. Detailed data were collected on the use of fields, subfields, indicators in bibliographic records, and on the co-occurrence of fields within bibliographic records. The sample used for the study was obtained by…

Describes a study that investigated the value of various access points in online catalog records by determining their usefulness to searchers who requested location information for items. Results of a transaction log analysis of the Illinois Library Computer Systems Office online union catalog for 45 academic libraries are discussed. (LRW)

Describes a study that examined the search behavior of remote users of the University of California MELVYL online public access catalog by analyzing the transaction logs. Highlights include the number of searches, databases searched, number of retrievals, constructing search commands, problems with search terms, and effectiveness of searches.…