WHAT DO THE PUBLIC SEARCH FOR ON THE CATALOGUE OF THE STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA?

This study examines what the public search for in the catalogue of the State Library of Victoria (SLV). As well as indicating the type of content being accessed, this gives an indication of what catalogue users expect of the State Library collection. A content analysis was undertaken of a random, stratified sample of 4,000 search queries typed in to the SLV catalogue by the public between 2005 and 2008. This study goes some way to providing empirical evidence that the library catalogue is used to research a different range of topics to those searched via the internet.