Search results

Industrial and academic users of online bibliographic searching over a year's time did not generally diminish their amount of use of other traditional manual means of information gathering activities. However, in comparison to less frequent users and nonusers, frequent users increased their reliance on librarians. Online users increased their appraisal of the adequacy of information services available to them, particularly as regards those aspects generally considered the primary benefits of online searching. Users positively increased their assessment of the utility of online searches to their work, and online bibliographic searching capability was subsequently adopted as a permanent feature in both the industrial and academic work settings.

Studies the effect of eight CD indexes on online searching through statistical data of online searching conducted for the faculty, graduate students and researchers before and after acquisition of CD indexes. Findings indicate considerable decline in online searching use owing to CD indexes saving a large amount of money. Discusses the impact of CD indexes on staffing in the reference department.

Faced with a relentless upsurge in the number of online searches from 1981 to 1982, the Head of Reference, Morisset Library and the Coordinator of Online Searching for the University of Ottawa ran, in June, 1982, a limited survey of staff allocation practices for online searching in 10 Canadian university libraries. The results of this survey and its implications for specific remedies to online staffing problems at the University of Ottawa are detailed. Recommendations for personnel allocation for online searching may find application in other university library systems in North America and elsewhere.

Online searchers in Australia were studied via a mailed questionnaire examining six sets of variables: backgrounds, experience, attitudes, behaviours, styles and satisfaction. They appeared to support preplanning, online interaction and relevance checks. In similar vein, they were mildly cost conscious and believed that their requesters were most satisfied with their performance. Those with greater experience tended to fit this description belter, as did those in special libraries.

Tertiary programmes for teaching online searching consist typically of the components of an online search system, different categories of databases, overview of database hosts and their search facilities, methods to create search strategies and command languages, to name but a few. Practical experience, an integral component, is gained by searching interactively on one or more database hosts, where the emphasis is on search techniques rather than the intrinsic characteristics of the databases of the specific system. The extent of students' hands‐on experience invariably depends on the teaching unit's budget, which may preclude extensive ‘live’ exposure. However, the technical facilities and shared resources of a local area network (LAN) are likely to have a significant effect on the traditional teaching methods of online searching. It is now possible, in a LAN environment, to integrate the various information retrieval activities, for example creating and searching personal or local databases, utilising these for indexing, abstracting and thesaurus building, searching locally on CDROM databases which simulate the search facilities and command languages of commercial database hosts and, when the need arises, accessing their external ‘online’ counterparts. This article will demonstrate how the limited concept of ‘online searching’ is broadened when a LAN and local databases are utilised in the online teaching process.

The relationship between user characteristics and the outcome of an online search is a growing area of investigation. This paper reports results of a study which examined user characteristics during mediated online searching in an academic environment, which related to online search outcome. Results of the study indicate that the academic status of the users and their experience of a prior online search on their information problem was significantly related to the online search outcome.

Studies the effect of eight CD indexes on online searching through statistical data of online searching conducted for the faculty, graduate students and researchers before and after acquisition of CD indexes. Findings indicate considerable decline in online searching use due to CD indexes, saving a large amount of money. Discusses the impact of CD indexes on staffing in the reference department.

This paper seeks to focus on identifying the searching behaviours of users, their difficulties as well as their expectations from library supports while using online databases at the Central Library of Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City.

Usage reports of six online databases subscribed by the Central Library were analyzed, a survey by emailing users a questionnaire and four deep interviews were conducted.

The amount of usage increases yearly, however it is still low in comparison with the number of subscribers who have registered for using online databases. Users did search for their research and study rather than for their teaching or professional knowledge update. Often they looked for journal articles and theses rather than e‐books. Key words and titles were used the most when searching. Reading the guidance from the library websites or from the databases was most used. This suggested that most users did not know how to use the databases and preferred to learn by themselves. Email was preferred by users to communicate with library staff. English language and database searching skills were the biggest barriers preventing users from employing online databases.

This paper provides an understanding of users' behaviours and suggests that it is necessary to assist users in using online databases in Vietnam universities. Up to now, these issues have not been known. They are relevant to improving the utilization of online databases.

In order to determine the feasibility of offering free online searches to ndergraduates at Texas A&M University's Evans Library, the authors offered free searches to selected Technical Writing classes in the Spring Semester of 1983. The response was surprisingly low, and the offer was extended to Summer Semester classes. As a result of this research project, the authors believe that free or partially‐subsidized searches can be offered, and they suggest ways to make the service available to undergraduates.

In support of an environmental research program in the field of water quality management at the Delft University of Technology, an exhaustive literature search was carried out, both online and manually. For online searching, information was retrieved from the databases Aqualine, Biosis, CA Search and Pascal, using the ESA/lnformation Retrieval System. For manual searching, professional journals and current awareness services were carefully studied.