Effectiveness of surname-title-words searches by scholars

✍ Scribed by Kilgour, Frederick G.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 628 KB
• Volume: 46
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0002-8231
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4571(199503)46:2<146::aid-asi7>3.0.co;2-m

✦ Synopsis

This article reports the findings of an experiment employing a simulated scholarly use of an online public access catalog (OPAC) to determine the frequency of one-screen displays when a scholar searches for a known-item with so-called "keywords" in an implied boolean system. The experiment revealed that a "keyword" search formula comprising surname plus first and last title words produced a single screen 92.8% of the time, thereby reducing the failure of traditional title searching to produce single screens by nearly one half; such a formula also enables a scholar to search successfully with abbreviated, unsearchable bibliographic citations. Additional research should be carried out, for if it is further demonstrated that replacing traditional bibliographic catalog entries with transcribed title pages provides an improved known-item OPAC, users would benefit and libraries would enjoy huge savings.