{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/19913"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/19913","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Coincidence of user vocabulary and Library of Congress subject headings: Experiments to improve subject access in academic library online catalogs","abstract":"Experimental research was needed to determine which retrieval processes in library online catalogs will increase the match success rate between user subject vocabulary and Library of Congress subject headings. Random samples of user subject terms from Northwestern University Library's NOTIS/LUIS online catalog were collected from transaction logs during the 1986/87 academic year. The user terms were described numerically, then compared to Library of Congress subject headings to determine the degree of match success.","abstract_html":"Experimental research was needed to determine which retrieval processes in library online catalogs will increase the match success rate between user subject vocabulary and Library of Congress subject headings. Random samples of user subject terms from Northwestern University Library's NOTIS/LUIS online catalog were collected from transaction logs during the 1986/87 academic year. The user terms were described numerically, then compared to Library of Congress subject headings to determine the degree of match success.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Lester, Marilyn A."],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Library Science and Information Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-05-07T12:22:41Z","date_published":"2011-05-07T12:22:41Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:14Z","subjects":["Library Science","Information Science"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Copyright 1989 Lester, Marilyn Ann"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["AAI8924884","(UMI)AAI8924884"],"render_values":[{"text":"AAI8924884","href":null,"code":true},{"text":"(UMI)AAI8924884","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/19913","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Lester, Marilyn A."]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2011-05-07T12:22:41Z","10000-01-01","1989"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Library Science and Information Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Library Science","Information Science"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 1989 Lester, Marilyn Ann"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["AAI8924884","(UMI)AAI8924884","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/19913"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Experimental research was needed to determine which retrieval processes in library online catalogs will increase the match success rate between user subject vocabulary and Library of Congress subject headings. Random samples of user subject terms from Northwestern University Library's NOTIS/LUIS online catalog were collected from transaction logs during the 1986/87 academic year. The user terms were described numerically, then compared to Library of Congress subject headings to determine the degree of match success.","The descriptive results showed that forty percent of all user terms exactly matched Library of Congress subject headings; user terms were short, with means of fewer than two words and thirteen characters per user term; users entered singular words eighty percent of the time; more than ninety percent of user terms contained no capitalization or punctuation of any kind; and more than one-fourth of all user terms contained a personal, corporate, or geographic name, but only one-third of these searches exactly matched Library of Congress subject headings.","Twenty-two experiments were conducted on match failures to determine how well modifications in search retrieval processes or file augmentation improved the match success rate in a simulated large academic library online catalog. Four categories of retrieval procedures were tested: (1) processing and correcting user input (i.e., spelling checker/dictionary, simultaneous singular and plural word form retrieval, and phonetic spelling); (2) searching the database (i.e., right truncation, string, and keyword searching operations in both the descriptor field only and full bibliographic records); (3) augmenting the database with authority files (i.e., subject, personal, corporate, and geographic name authorities); and (4) searching the augmented database (i.e., right truncation, string, and keyword searching applied to the augmented database).","The experimental results showed that the retrieval processes of right truncation, string searching with adjacency, and keyword searching with the Boolean operator significantly improved match success both with and without augmentation of the database with subject and name authorities and with the full text of bibliographic records. Neither subject nor name authority files improved match success if the online catalog required users to exactly match the Library of Congress form of entry.","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:22:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 8924884.pdf: 16244662 bytes, checksum: 622beaed04a66697581037c17060b05d (MD5) Previous issue date: 1989","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T14:40:17Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:17:12-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","U of I Only"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Coincidence of user vocabulary and Library of Congress subject headings: Experiments to improve subject access in academic library online catalogs"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Lester, Marilyn A."],"dc:date":["2011-05-07T12:22:41Z","10000-01-01","1989"],"dc:description":["Experimental research was needed to determine which retrieval processes in library online catalogs will increase the match success rate between user subject vocabulary and Library of Congress subject headings. Random samples of user subject terms from Northwestern University Library's NOTIS/LUIS online catalog were collected from transaction logs during the 1986/87 academic year. The user terms were described numerically, then compared to Library of Congress subject headings to determine the degree of match success.","The descriptive results showed that forty percent of all user terms exactly matched Library of Congress subject headings; user terms were short, with means of fewer than two words and thirteen characters per user term; users entered singular words eighty percent of the time; more than ninety percent of user terms contained no capitalization or punctuation of any kind; and more than one-fourth of all user terms contained a personal, corporate, or geographic name, but only one-third of these searches exactly matched Library of Congress subject headings.","Twenty-two experiments were conducted on match failures to determine how well modifications in search retrieval processes or file augmentation improved the match success rate in a simulated large academic library online catalog. Four categories of retrieval procedures were tested: (1) processing and correcting user input (i.e., spelling checker/dictionary, simultaneous singular and plural word form retrieval, and phonetic spelling); (2) searching the database (i.e., right truncation, string, and keyword searching operations in both the descriptor field only and full bibliographic records); (3) augmenting the database with authority files (i.e., subject, personal, corporate, and geographic name authorities); and (4) searching the augmented database (i.e., right truncation, string, and keyword searching applied to the augmented database).","The experimental results showed that the retrieval processes of right truncation, string searching with adjacency, and keyword searching with the Boolean operator significantly improved match success both with and without augmentation of the database with subject and name authorities and with the full text of bibliographic records. Neither subject nor name authority files improved match success if the online catalog required users to exactly match the Library of Congress form of entry.","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:22:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 8924884.pdf: 16244662 bytes, checksum: 622beaed04a66697581037c17060b05d (MD5) Previous issue date: 1989","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T14:40:17Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:17:12-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","U of I Only"],"dc:identifier":["AAI8924884","(UMI)AAI8924884","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/19913"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 1989 Lester, Marilyn Ann"],"dc:subject":["Library Science","Information Science"],"dc:title":["Coincidence of user vocabulary and Library of Congress subject headings: Experiments to improve subject access in academic library online catalogs"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Library Science and Information Science"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:14Z"}