Analyzing Search Styles of Patrons and Staff: A Replicative Study of Two University Libraries

Abstract

Librarians at the University of the Pacific (UOP) designed a replication of an earlier transaction log study. We hypothesized that library staff would use a feature that allows the searcher to limit a search by location or material type more often than patrons. We also hypothesized that staff and reference librarians would have a higher success rate than public users. Our third hypothesis was that UOP patrons would perform keyword searches more often than library staff. Studies were conducted in 1995 and 1996 to test these hypotheses. In our two-year endeavor to provide comparative data on the search styles of patrons and staff, we discovered that replicating a study is not nearly as straightforward as we had initially thought. We also found it surprisingly difficult to compare year to year data at the same institution. This was primarily due to a continually changing technological environment.