Finding fiction: Search moves and success in two online catalogs

Search moves for finding novels in five search tasks and two catalogs were analyzed. Search tasks reflected the following search tactics: known-author search, topical search, open-ended browsing, search by analogy, and searching without a query. The most used search moves in both catalogs across all tasks were querying, search results inspection, and book page examination. In a traditional catalog, more effort was needed in the form of queries, search moves, and opened book pages to gain equivalent average book scores when compared with an enriched catalog. In a traditional catalog, a typical search strategy for interesting titles seemed to involve issuing queries and considering suitable entry terms carefully, and devoting more attention to search results instead of book pages. In an enriched catalog, a common approach involved time devoted to exploring the catalog's enriched front page and multiple entry points together with attention to the enriched results list.