Gaining Weight for Good Reason: Analysis of Fuller Bibliographic Records in Supporting

Keyword Search

Lisa ZhaoAssistant Catalog Librarian

Clinical Associate ProfessorCatalog Dept.Daley Library

Univ. of ILL at Chicago

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An Overview Reality:

Library users turn to search engines as their first choice for seeking information.

Analysis:Very often, users cannot find some resources from the library online catalog that even the library has when search by their own words.

Consequence:- Many library materials consequently become “hidden items,” left on the shelf not being used, faces being weeded;- Library loses users.

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Users’ Search Behavior

“People describe things differently, so it is up to the searcher to use multiple terms and phrases, to search creatively, and to recognize the importance of context. Traditional searching used controlled vocabularies and human assigned thesauri. The buzzword today is folksonomies, or uncontrolled vocabularies.”

Ojala, Marydee: Changes in Search Behavior, Online, v.31: issue 1, Jan/Feb, 2007, p.14-15.

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Words in Nowadays

In physical environments, size, shape, color,

and location set objects apart.

In the digital realm, we rely heavily on words,

words as labels, words as links.

Morville, Peter: Ambient Findability, 2005

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Words in Nowadays

“As a vital ingredient in the online search process, keywords have become part of our everyday experience. We feed keywords into Google, Yahoo!, MSN, eBay, and Amazon. We search for news, products, people, used furniture, and music. And words are the key our success.”

Morville, Peter: Ambient Findability, 2005

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Special Words (or Jargons)

The rare terms occur infrequently, but when they do occur they are likely to be crucial to what is being said, and the reader might well want to look them up. “… the words we

ignore for the purposes of the exercise may be very rare, but in context they may be very important.”

Facts about the language, AskOxford.com: http://www.askoxford.com/oec/mainpage/oec02/?view=uk

(April. 12, 2010 accessed)

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Comparison: Search in Library Online Catalog - Search Engine

Information searchers

Search engine’s interface

Full-text Contents of the online works

Input by millions of authors

Library online catalog interface

Bibliographic Records

Input by a few catalogers in each institution

Full-text Contents of works (print + ER)

A B?

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Case Studies I

Stokstad, Marilyn: Art History. Upper Saddle

River, N.J.: Pearson Education, 3rd edition,

2008.

- Bibliographic content- How much we missed- The effect

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Case Studies II

Wonders of the world as seen and described by

great writers, collected and edited by Esther

Singleton, New York: Dodd, Mead & company,

1912. - Bibliographic content- How much we missed- The effect

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Case Studies III

Chen, Tian-Quan. Non-equilibrium statistical

mechanics: without the assumption of molecular

chaos. River Edge, N.J.: World Scientific, c2003.

- Bibliographic content- How much we missed- Result

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Case Studies IV

E-book: Advanced formal verification, edited by

Rolf Drechsler. Boston: Kluwer Academic

Publishers, c2004.

- Bibliographic content- How much we missed- Result

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Conclusion

- To date, bibliographic records have NOT adequately reflected the rich content of library resources and met users’ need in the web environment as well.

- Countless library resources are poorly represented by UNDERNOURISHED bibliographic records. Therefore, these resources have little chance to be found by the search beyond standard bibliographic access points in the library online catalog.

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Suggestion

Make bibliographic control dynamic

Adding TOCs into bibliographic records

Original catalogers should take responsibility

Change the link to the TOC in a bibliographic record into the real content

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Final WordLibraries have been collecting records of human

civilization and knowledge for centuries. These contents

are not easily replaceable by or findable from the

current online content in a short time. We have

responsibility to present them to our users.

A genie—library collections—has been locked in its smalllamp—the traditional bibliographic record—not easily discovered for centuries. Once we release it from the lamp, it will reveal the power of library collections.