Search results

VINE is produced at least four times a year with the object of providing up‐to‐date news of work being done in the automation of library housekeeping processes, principally in the UK. It is edited and substantially written by Tony McSean, Information Officer for Library Automation based in Southampton University Library and supported by a grant from the British Library Research and Development Department. Copyright for VINE articles rests with the British Library Board, but opinions expressed in VINE do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the British Library. The subscription to VINE is £17 per annum and the period runs from January to December.

One of the biggest concerns of modern information retrieval systems is reducing the user effort required for manual traversal and filtering of long matching document lists. Thus, the first goal of this research is to propose an improved scheme for representation of search results. Further, it aims to explore the impact of various user information needs on the searching process with the aim of finding a unified searching approach well suited for different query types and retrieval tasks.

The BoW online bibliographical catalogue is based on a hierarchical concept index to which entries are linked. The key idea is that searching in the hierarchical catalogue should take advantage of the catalogue structure and return matching topics from the hierarchy, rather than just a long list of entries. Likewise, when new entries are inserted, a search for relevant topics to which they should be linked is required. Therefore, a similar hierarchical scheme for query‐topic matching can be applied for both tasks.

The experiments show that different query types used for the above tasks are best treated by different topic ranking functions. To further examine this phenomenon a user study was conducted, where various statistical weighting factors were incorporated and their impact on the performance for different query types was measured. Finally, it is found that the mixed strategy that applies the most suitable ranking function to each query type yielded a significant increase in precision relative to the baseline and to employing any examined strategy in isolation on the entire set of user queries.

The main contributions of this paper are: the alternative approach for compact and concise representation of search results, which were implemented in the BoW online bibliographical catalogue; and the unified or mixed strategy for search and result representation applying the most suitable ranking function to each query type, which produced superior results compared to different single‐strategy‐based approaches.

The objective of this study is to establish the opinion of users with respect to the awareness and utilisation of, as well as their satisfaction level with, the use of the online public access catalogue (OPAC).

The paper deals with the applicability and utility of OPACs in five libraries in New Delhi, namely the Indian Institute of Technology; Jawaharlal Nehru University Library; Dr Zakir Husain Library, Jamia Millia Islamia; National Information System for Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR); and the Defence Science Information and Documentation Centre (DESIDOC). A questionnaire was developed and distributed randomly to 128 users including undergraduates and post graduate students as well as MPhil. and PhD scholars. Users returned 115 completed questionnaires of which 100 were selected for analysis.

The paper finds that the OPAC system has changed the traditional concept of access to library resources. It allows simple as well as complex searches. Document access is still one of the most important approaches of users to visit the library, and a study of the effectiveness of an OPAC is useful in this respect. Regarding results, sometimes users face problems of recall and precision. However, in some searches users are not able to find relevant documents on account of various factors. Data show that a high percentage of respondents are utilising the OPAC as a search tool for retrieving documents. Also, most of the users handle the OPAC themselves. Significantly, the satisfaction level of users was high with the OPAC facilities. Nevertheless, not many users are aware of the expert searches provided by OPAC.

The paper focuses on many aspects of OPACs, particularly those in India. Librarians, especially those from developing nations, may choose their library automation software packages keeping in view the user's expectation with respect to OPACs.

This paper draws on data from a comparative study of use of the online public access catalogue (OPAC) and the card catalogue of the ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) library, and examines the steady decline in the use of subject searching by end‐users and the associated problems and issues. It presents data to highlight the negligible use of Boolean operators and combination searches, variations in descriptors assigned to books of the same class numbers, and too many records tagged to very broad descriptors. The article concludes that moving from a traditional card catalogue to a modern OPAC has not made subject searching more attractive or effective.

Aims to focus on research and findings relating to the Z‐server response times and the performance of Z39.50 for parallel searching.

This paper begins by briefly outlining the evolution of Z39.50 and the current trends, including the work of the JISC CC‐interop project. The research crux of the paper focuses on an investigation conducted with respect to testing Z39.50 server (Z‐server) response times in a broadcast (parallel) searching environment. Customised software was configured to broadcast a search to all test Z‐servers once an hour, for 11 weeks. The results were logged for analysis.

Most Z‐servers responded rapidly. “Network congestion” and local online public catalogue usage were not found to influence Z‐server performance significantly. Response time issues encountered by implementers may be the result of non‐response by the Z‐server and how Z‐client software deals with this. The influence of “quick and dirty” Z39.50 implementations is also identified as a potential cause of slow broadcast searching.

The paper indicates various areas for further research, including setting shorter time‐outs and greater end‐user behavioural research to ascertain user requirements in this area. The influence more complex searches, such as Boolean, have on response times and suboptimal Z39.50 implementations are also emphasised for further study.

This paper informs the library and information science (LIS) research community and has practical implications for those establishing Z39.50 based distributed systems, as well as those in the web services community.

The paper challenges popular LIS opinion that Z39.50 is inherently sluggish and thus unsuitable for the demands of the modern user.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the manner and purposes for which users search the Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) in the University Libraries of India. The study is a comparative analysis of the use of OPAC in three universities located, in the Union Territory of Chandigarh and Punjab, a northern state of India.

A structured questionnaire was developed, designed and distributed among 500 respondents in the three universities after conducting a suitable pilot study and pre‐testing the tools of investigation. There were 384 (76.8 per cent) respondents who returned the filled‐in questionnaires. The data, thus collected, were compiled, processed and analyzed with the aid of the SPSS package (version 14.0).

Users in all three universities were found to be in regular use of OPAC in the libraries. This usage frequency was despite the fact that the users had encountered a number of problems while doing this. Contrary to expectations, however, there is a great degree of similarity in the results obtained especially with regard to the various aspects examined in connection with the use of OPAC in three different libraries.

OPAC has an important place in university libraries. The findings have strong policy implications in the fact that they will help the library community to improve the current OPAC facility usage in university libraries in India as well as in other developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether a faceted OPAC interface offers improvements to information discovery in scholarly research.

The 5.2 million records of an entire library catalog were loaded into a faceted navigation interface and an attractive search term suggestion tool. Humanities PhD students at the dissertation level and familiar with this collection were observed while using this interface to continue their research into the literature on their dissertation topic.

From a group of 12 subjects, nine reported finding materials that they had not found in their previous use of the traditional catalog interface.

No attempt is made to isolate the effects of relevance ranking on discovery from those of faceted navigation or the search term suggestions. The differences between the circumstances of scholars who did and did not find previously undiscovered materials are not examined.

Faceted interface and search term suggestion in a library catalog may enable those scholars who are highly dependent on library materials to find materials that would remain hidden in a traditional library catalog.

This article considers whether faceted navigation increases the range of relevant materials that scholars discover, and is of interest to libraries which are considering adding faceted navigation and other features to their catalog interface.

This paper aims to describe three utility tools developed at Texas A&M University Libraries, which were designed for quick access and search of the Voyager OPAC and the Voyager clients.

The Voyager Canned Search Generator provides content creators with an automatic way to generate persistent links to catalog searches. Quick‐Cat is an OPAC shortcut search tool. It allows users to highlight bibliographic data, including authors, titles, ISBN numbers, or ISSN numbers on any web site and immediately search their own library catalog, with just one click. Designed to assist in the EBSCONET serials renewal, an Excel VBA Macro provides an easy gateway from the renewal list to the Voyager Acquisitions and Cataloging clients, the EBSCONET web site, and the library's SFX system.

The three tools fulfilled their design goals. Users were satisfied with them and they improved productivity. With innovative ideas, some technical know‐how, and a good understanding of the issues librarians can turn themselves into developers of useful tools. They could come up with small, yet effective solutions by leveraging the existing system infrastructure, and combining or mixing available components. The paper discusses development issues, benefits, drawbacks and user feedback.

The paper provides useful information on developing utility tools for quick access and search of Voyager OPAC and the Voyager clients.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on two announcements from The Library of Congress and OCLC, the Online Library Computer Center, with immediate, long‐lasting and profound impact on search and discovery.

Announcements from two organizations are explored for implications to libraries and users.

Libraries need to consider service implications of changes implemented in series authority cataloging by the Library of Congress, and to explore what the impact on access will be. The enhancements to search and access through WorldCat's search box will provide our users with improved discovery and information management.

This editorial offers a reflection on the importance to our users of both series authority work and access to the collections of the world's libraries.