Karen Markey Drabenstott and Diane Vizine‐Goetz
Search trees presented in this article control system responses and determine appropriate subject searching approaches to user queries. Users do not explicitly choose a particular…
Abstract
Search trees presented in this article control system responses and determine appropriate subject searching approaches to user queries. Users do not explicitly choose a particular approach. Rather, systems respond with an approach based on the extent to which queries match the catalog's controlled vocabulary and produce retrievals. The benefit of incorporating search trees into online bibliographic systems is the ability to place the responsibility of determining which approach produces the best results on the system.
Denise Kaplan, Joseph R. Matthews, William Horton, Karen Markey Drabenstott, Charles R. Hildreth, Katharina Klemperer, Lare Mischo, K.T. Noerr and Marilee Winiarski
Most second‐generation online catalogs give libraries some capability to customize help messages, screen displays, and system prompts. Microcomputer applications designed or…
Abstract
Most second‐generation online catalogs give libraries some capability to customize help messages, screen displays, and system prompts. Microcomputer applications designed or mounted locally may offer even more flexibility. Commercially available information systems offer the user some type of assistance, even when not totally profitable. The librarian has become an active, if not always willing, participant in the design of his or her system's user interface. Knowledge of both patrons and collections can have direct bearing on the structure and effectiveness of the library's automated system, its interface, and online help features.
Karen M. Drabenstott and Marjorie S. Weller
Library users continue to experience difficulty in using the online catalog, particularly in the area of subject access. This project describes a test of a new design for subject…
Abstract
Library users continue to experience difficulty in using the online catalog, particularly in the area of subject access. This project describes a test of a new design for subject access to online catalogs. The new design requires a wide range of subject searching capabilities and search trees to govern the system's selection of searching capabilities in response to user queries. Is the performance of search trees superior to subject searching approaches chosen at random? This project is geared to make that determination.
The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a…
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a literature review of the first twenty‐five years of TLA poses some challenges and requires some decisions. The primary organizing principle could be a strict chronology of the published research, the research questions addressed, the automated information retrieval (IR) systems that generated the data, the results gained, or even the researchers themselves. The group of active transaction log analyzers remains fairly small in number, and researchers who use transaction logs tend to use this method more than once, so tracing the development and refinement of individuals' uses of the methodology could provide insight into the progress of the method as a whole. For example, if we examine how researchers like W. David Penniman, John Tolle, Christine Borgman, Ray Larson, and Micheline Hancock‐Beaulieu have modified their own understandings and applications of the method over time, we may get an accurate sense of the development of all applications.