Quoting "Walker, David" <[log in to unmask]>:

> Here are some stats from Cal State San Marcos for the past 6 1/2   
> years (2003-10) .  All searches other than keyword are browse   
> searches.
>
>   keyword = 596,111
>   title = 158,761
>   author = 59,293
>   subject = 23,692
>   call number = 9,477
>   form / genre = 4,838
>   other numbers = 14,636
>
> So:
>
>   keyword = 596,111
>   browse = 270,697

This is an interesting example of how the interface guides (or  
constrains, in this case) users. If you want to do a title "search"  
you have only the browse option. The FCLA system has both title  
keyword search and title browse. In that catalog, only 3% of the users  
opted to browse. In the figure above, all we know is that some  
percentage of users wanted to search on title, and browse was the only  
option.

kc

>
> These stats only tracked searches that were performed from the   
> catalog home page [1] or that of the library website [2].  Any   
> subsequent searches performed inside the catalog itself are not   
> counted here.
>
> I'm not sure if this is really showing that a browse display is   
> popular here, though.  I suspect a good number of users (other than   
> librarians) were expecting the title and author searches to behave   
> like the keyword search.  But those options are browse searches, so   
> they generate hits in favor of the browse.
>
> --Dave
>
> [1] http://library.csusm.edu/catalog/
> [2] http://biblio.csusm.edu/
>
> ==================
> David Walker
> Library Web Services Manager
> California State University
> http://xerxes.calstate.edu
> ________________________________________
> From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of   
> Bill Dueber [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 11:08 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [CODE4LIB] A call for your OPAC (or other system)   
> statistics! (Browse interfaces)
>
> I got email from a person today saying, and I quote,
>
>  "I must say that [the lack of a browse interface] come as a shock (*which
> interface cannot browse??*)"
>
> [Emphasis mine]
>
> Here, a "browse interface" is one where you can get a giant list of all the
> titles/authors/subjects whatever -- a view on the data devoid of any
> searching.
>
> Will those of you out there with "browse interfaces" in your system take a
> couple minutes to send along a guesstimate of what percentage of patron
> sessions involve their use?
>
> [Note that for right now, I'm excluding "type-ahead" search boxes although
> there's an obvious and, in my mind, strong argument to be made that they're
> substantially similar for many types of data]
>
> We don't have a browse interface on our (VuFind) OPAC right now. But in the
> interest of paying it forward, I can tell you that in Mirlyn, our OPAC, has
> numbers like this:
>
> Pct of Mirlyn sessions, Feb/March/April 2010, which included at least one
> basic
> search and also:
>
>   Go to full record view      46% (we put a lot of info in search results)
>   Select/"favorite" an item   15%
>   Add a facet:                13%
>   Export record(s)
>    to email/refworks/RIS/etc. 3.4%
>   Send to phone (sms)         0.21%
>   Click on faq/help/AskUs
>      in footer                0.17%  (324 total)
>
> Based on 187,784 sessions, 2010.02.01 to 2010.04.31
>
> So...anyone out there able to tell me anything about browse interfaces?
>
> --
> Bill Dueber
> Library Systems Programmer
> University of Michigan Library
>



-- 
Karen Coyle
[log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net
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