Re: What to call the links

Sure, many libraries save the logs for their catalog,
journal 
finder/Serials Solution-type product, etc. Sometimes a
library will just 
focus on "no hit" searches to focus on the failed
search attempts. This 
can also be a good collection development exercise -- what
don't you 
provide access to that people are indeed looking for?

I must say it's pretty cool to that a search of the Web4Lib
archive for "
Einsturzende Neubauten" will now get a hit! (well, two
now)

--Steve
___________________________________________________
Steve Cramer
Librarian for Accounting, Apparel, Business, &
Economics
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
smcrameruncg.edu ; 336-256-0346
AIM: stevebizlib ; Google Talk: stevebizlibgmail.com




Lars Aronsson <larsaronsson.se> 
Sent by: web4lib-bounceswebjunction.org
05/06/2008 08:02 AM

To
web4libwebjunction.org
cc

Subject
Re: [Web4lib] What to call the links






Michelle Watson wrote:

> We placed basic search functionality directly on the
home page, 
> along with links to more in depth searching if
necessary.

Do any libraries store and analyze the search expressions
that 
their users type in?  I don't know, but I can imagine, that
this 
would be a major part of what search engine companies do.

If I go to http://catalog.loc.gov/
and search for the author 
Einstien (note the subtle misspelling), I get a hit list
starting 
with Einsturzende Neubauten, Einsweiler, EINTAD, and
Einthoven. 

The same search on Google yields the suggestion "did
you mean 
Einstein?" and the top two hits in the list are on
Einstein, 
before the misspelled web pages start to appear.

It would be interesting to learn how many typed Einstien
into the 
catalog search, compared to how many correctly typed
Einstein.

It's impressive of course that not a single book at LoC is 
cataloged under this misspelling.  But perhaps librarians
are 
overly occupied with spell checking catalog records, in
proportion 
to looking at what search expressions their users enter.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (larsaronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


_______________________________________________
Web4lib mailing list
Web4libwebjunction.org
http://lists.we
bjunction.org/web4lib/


_______________________________________________
Web4lib mailing list
Web4libwebjunction.org
http://lists.we
bjunction.org/web4lib/