The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a literature review of the first twenty‐five years of TLA poses some challenges and requires some decisions. The primary organizing principle could be a strict chronology of the published research, the research questions addressed, the automated information retrieval (IR) systems that generated the data, the results gained, or even the researchers themselves. The group of active transaction log analyzers remains fairly small in number, and researchers who use transaction logs tend to use this method more than once, so tracing the development and refinement of individuals' uses of the methodology could provide insight into the progress of the method as a whole. For example, if we examine how researchers like W. David Penniman, John Tolle, Christine Borgman, Ray Larson, and Micheline Hancock‐Beaulieu have modified their own understandings and applications of the method over time, we may get an accurate sense of the development of all applications.

The history and development of transaction log analysis

"When Smart People Fail" was the apt title of a 1989 article by Thomas Peters that discussed the successes, failures, and problems of patrons trying to search the online catalog at a large academic library.1 The study indicated that people still expe rience many of the same problems found in studies done ten years ago when online cat alogs were new. This article reports on a transaction monitoring study conducted at North Car olina State University. The purpose of the study was to provide additional informa tion on patrons' searching behavior and the problems patrons experience when us ing the online catalog. By adding to Peters' findings, we hope to create a better under standing of where our systems are causing "smart people"-our patrons-to fail. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Successes and Failures of Patrons Searching the Online Catalog at a Large Academic Library: A Transaction Log Analysis.

This paper aims to present the results of a survey conducted to determine the effective use of online public access catalogue (OPAC) at the libraries of engineering colleges in Karnataka. The paper examines the results from a questionnaire-based survey conducted at the libraries of engineering colleges in Karnataka. 1716 samples of the questionnaire was distributed randomly between the staff and students of engineering colleges across Karnataka, out of which 1338 completed and valid questionnaires (77.97%) were received for analysis. The data received from the respondents through these questionnaires was analyses. Some of the major constraints for the use of OPAC at the libraries of engineering colleges were found to be 1) Lack of awareness of between user community 2) OPAC is not user friendly software 3) Information technology (IT) competency between user communities was lack luster. Thus, the study clearly highlighted the need for an education programme module for users to promote the effective usage of OPAC. An attempt is made through this study to present the difficulties faced by users at engineering college libraries, in searching information using OPAC. This paper provides useful empirical evidence for librarians and the research community on the usage of OPAC in libraries of engineering colleges. The results of this study will be useful for librarians at engineering colleges in Karnataka and also to other librarians around the state and country. This paper provides original data from library end users in engineering colleges, regarding their experience whiles using OPAC.

	 

	Key words: OPAC, online public access catalogue, library automation, engineering colleges, libraries, effective usage.

A study on the effective use of online public access catalogue at the libraries of engineering colleges in Karnataka (India)

This paper draws on data from a comparative study of use of the online public access catalogue (OPAC) and the card catalogue of the ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) library, and examines the steady decline in the use of subject searching by end‐users and the associated problems and issues. It presents data to highlight the negligible use of Boolean operators and combination searches, variations in descriptors assigned to books of the same class numbers, and too many records tagged to very broad descriptors. The article concludes that moving from a traditional card catalogue to a modern OPAC has not made subject searching more attractive or effective.

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Subject searching in the OPAC of a special library: problems and issues

Even though use studies of card catalogues are quite rare, use of online public access catalogues (OPACs) has been extensively investigated since early 1980s. Yet there are not many attempts to conduct comparative studies highlighting the differences in use of card catalogues and OPACs of the same library and user population. This paper reports an attempt made to study use of the OPAC of ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) library and compare the results with the findings of the study of use of card catalogue of the same library conducted 17 years ago. The paper not only brings various aspects of user behaviour about OPAC but also depicts the differences in user behaviour as well as the effects of technological changes from card catalogue (manual system) to OPAC (automated system).

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OPAC vs card catalogue: a comparative study of user behaviour

/pdf/public-terminal-use-in-an-online-catalog-some-preliminary-5df1shmjga.pdf

Gail Herndon Lawrence

Papers

Public Terminal Use in an Online Catalog: Some Preliminary Results