Subject Access and Users: Insights & Inspirations from Marcia J. Bates

1. Subject Access and Users:Insights & Inspirations from Marcia J. Bates Presented at the Historical Perspective SIG session, 2005 ALISE, Boston, Mass. By Ingrid Hsieh-Yee Professor SLIS, Catholic University of America Jan. 12, 2005 (rev. 1/14/05)

2. Marcia as a researcher • “Wholistic librarian” • Full agenda for linking users and information • Commitment to advancing knowledge • Rigor in research • Generous in sharing ideas and guiding others • Life-long learner

3. Information seeking behavior • Principle of least effort: ease of use and accessibility are the keys (Coleman, Katz, & Menzel, 1967; Bates, 2003) • Types of info. seekers & their circumstances: general, intense searchers, & gatekeepers (Bates, 2003) • Earlier experience and role models affect information seeking behavior (Bates, 2003) • Berrypicking model (1989) • Searchers revise a query in response to search output • Searchers use many techniques • Searches explore various resource domains

4. Subject access • Expertise and subject searches in catalogs (Bates, 1977, 1994, 1996) • Subject searches and browsing in the stacks (Bates, 1977) • One-term subject searches, lack of persistence/knowledge, about 50% success rate (Bates, 1977) • Matching user terms and subject headings is challenging (21-35% exact match) (Bates, 1977)

5. Findings on searches from later studies • Simple searches with little revision of search statements (Borgman, 1986; Fenichel, 1981; NPD, 1999; Jansen & Pooch, 2001) • Importance of subject searches, reliance on keyword, and high failure rate (Cochrane, 1983; Matthews et al, 1983; Hildreth, 1997) • Low use of LCSH and difficulty of LCSH (Drabenstott, 1991) • Confusion over LCSH and keywords (Hsieh-Yee, 1995; Lombardo & Condic, 2000) • User problems with Boolean logic (Borgman, 1986; Bates et al. 1993) • Wide range of different search terms (Bates, 1989, 1998)

6. User-centered system design Bates 1986, 1989, 1990, 1994, 2002 • Support user behavior vs. forcing user adjustment • Support for subject searching, footnote chasing, citation searching, area scanning, author searching, journal contents lists • Strong support for browsing • “Side of the Barn Principle” (lead-in terms) • Cluster vocabulary (LADWP) • Expanding entry vocabulary for LCSH

7. Bibliographic relationships Bates 2003 • Importance of bibliographic family • Types of bibliographic relationship • Promise of FRBR • Need for agreement on what constitute “bibliographic family” • Need for agreement on which relationships to provide links for (where to begin)

8. Staging access to resources in user interface • Amazon.com: staging and linking examples • Staging access to resources in a 1:30 ratio • Extending cooperation with publishers to enhance access to resources and support searching

9. Areas for further research: Inspirations from MJB • Cluster vocabulary: display design and testing • Cluster vocabulary vs. other techniques such as concept mapping now provided by search engines • Bibliographic families and users: the “so what” question • Staged access: Amazon’s strengths and limitations • Understanding users problems, catalogs and personal information space

10. Areas for further research (cont’) • Other approaches for exploiting existing metadata description. • Technologies for exploiting existing metadata description (OCLC example) • Other methods for supporting subject access. Implications for user training, metadata description (ideal level of description, indexing policies, indexing lang. design) • What information to provide during search process, how to stage it, what technologies can be used