Retrieval effectiveness of surname-title-word searches for known items by Academic Library users

✍ Scribed by Kilgour, Frederick G. ;Moran, Barbara B. ;Barden, John R.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 123 KB
• Volume: 50
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0002-8231
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4571(1999)50:3<265::aid-asi9>3.0.co;2-r

✦ Synopsis

This article reports the findings of an experiment using a simulated title page, author surnames, and title words, one-third of which were selected by each of the three authors, to determine the frequency of one-screen displays when used to search for known items in an implied boolean retrieval system. Searches comprising surname plus one significant title word produced one-screen displays 78% of the time; surname plus two words 97% of the time; and surname plus three words 98.5%. Threequarters of the significant words were nouns.