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An increasing number of library user studies are employing ethnographic techniques as an alternative to more traditional qualitative methods such as surveys. Such techniques, however, are only beginning to see significant application to catalog user studies. Beginning with a discussion of the applied ethnographic method and its current usage within the field of Library and Information Science research, this article will assess methods that have traditionally been applied to studies of catalog users and present the case for the potential of an ethnographic approach for future catalog evaluation and design. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Typographical errors can block access to records in on-line catalogs; but, when a word contains a typo and is also spelled correctly elsewhere in the same record, access may not be blocked. To quantify the effect of typographical errors in records on information retrieval, we conducted a study to measure the proportion of records that contain a typographical error but that do not also contain a correct spelling of the same word. This article presents the experimental design, results of the study, and a statistical analysis of the results. We find that the average proportion of records that are blocked by the presence of a typo (that is, records in which a correct spelling of the word does not also occur) ranges from 35% to 99%, depending upon the frequency of the word being searched and the likelihood of the word being misspelled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the forty-year history of online use of classification systems. Enhancing subject access was the rationale for obtaining support to conduct research in classification online and for incorporating classification into online systems. Catalogers have been the beneficiaries of most of the advances in classification online and operational online systems are now able to assist them in class number assignment and shelf-listing. To this day, the only way in which most end users experience classification online is through their online catalog's shelf-list browsing capability. The author speculates on the reasons why classification online never caught on as an end user's tool in online systems. Both the information industry and the library and information science community missed the opportunity to lead the charge in the organization of Internet resources; however, OCLC, the publisher of the Dewey Decimal Classification, has made substantial improvements to the scheme that have increased its versatility for organizing Internet resources. Because mass digitization projects such as Google Print will solve the problem of subject access, the author makes recommendations for classification online to solve these vexing problems of end users: staging of access, retrieving the best material in response to user queries, and automatic approaches to finding additional relevant information for an ongoing search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1980, most of the functions of the card catalog have been gradually incorporated into the online catalog. In contrast, the traditional shelflist has fallen into obscurity as retrospective conversion projects have been completed. Most of the functions of the traditional shelflist have been incorporated into the online catalog: nevertheless, the online catalog still does not provide all the functions that the traditional shelflist used to perform. This paper introduces how Washington State University Libraries set up an online history file to incorporate some of the functions of the traditional shelflist into their online catalog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the commercial services available tot providing authority control in online catalogs. It identifies common reasons cited by libraries for outsourcing authority control and examines in-depth the types of authority control services. These include retrospective cleanup of the authority and bibliographic files, ongoing authority control work for newly cataloged bibliographic records and previously cataloged records where headings have changed, and periodic file reauthorizations when there was a one-time retrospective authority control database cleanup, but the library did not contract ongoing authority control services. The three phases of the outsourced authority control process are discussed, including preprocessing, machine matching, and manual record review. Finally, reports produced by the vendors are mentioned and challenges for automated international authority control are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The MACS (Multilingual access to subjects) project is one of the many projects that are currently exploring solutions to multilingual subject access to online catalogs. Its strategy is to develop a Web-based link and search interface through which equivalents between three Subject Heading Languages-SWD/RSWK (Schlagwortnormdatei/Regeln für den Schlagwortkatalog) for German, RAMEAU (Répertoire d'Autorité-Matière Encyclopédique et Alphabétique Unifié) for French, and LCSH (Library of Congress Subject Headings) for English-can be created and maintained, and by which users can access online databases in the language of their choice. Factors that have led to this approach will be examined and the MACS linking strategy will be explained. The trend to using mapping or linking strategies between different controlled vocabularies to create multilingual access challenges the traditional view of the multilingual thesaurus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]