How Users Search the Library from a Single…

How Users Search the Library from a Single Search Box :

“Academic libraries are turning increasingly to unified search solutions to simplify search and discovery of library resources. Unfortunately, very little research has been published on library user search behavior in single search box environments. This study examines how users search a large public university library using a prominent, single search box on the library website. The article examines two semesters of real-world data, totaling nearly 1.4 million transactions. Findings include that unified library search is about more than the catalog and articles, though these predominate. Additionally, a small number of the most popular search queries accounts for a disproportionate amount of the overall queries. Also discussed are the merits of ongoing evaluation of library user search behavior”

URL : http://crl.acrl.org/content/early/2012/01/09/crl-321.full.pdf

User’s behaviour inside a digital library

CASPUR allows many academic Italian institutions located in the Centre-South of Italy to access more than 7 million of articles through a digital library platform. We analyzed the behaviour of its users by considering their “traces” stored into the web server log file.

Using several Web Mining and Data Mining techniques we discovered that there is a gradual and dynamic change in the way how articles are accessed; in particular there is evidence of a Journal browsing increase in comparison to the searching mode.

We interpreted such phenomenon by considering that browsing better meets the need of users when they want to keep abreast about the latest advances in their scientific field, in comparison to a more generic searching inside the digital library.

URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/14805/