IE 5 eating comlex URLs?

[Kenneth Irwin]

Hi folks, 

I've been having a persistent (but not consistent) problem with IE 5 with
regard to URLs into which argument variables have been embedded. So far
I've only seen on URLs with relative links. For example

eg, if the codes (view source) says: 
/cgi-bin/lib/testbed/idx/avsearch.pl?terms=Feature+films&fields=su&format=any
it gets garbled into:
http://www5.wittenberg.edu/cgi-bin/lib/testbed/idx/avsearch.pl?terms=Feature
?&fields=su&format=any

/search/abujold%2C+lois+mcmaster/abujold+lois+mcmaster/1,1,20,B/detlframeset
&F=abujold+lois+mcmaster&9,,20
becomes into:
http://olc1.ohiolink.edu/search/abujold%2C?????????????,1,20,B/detlframeset&
F=abujold????&9,,20

(all those stray question marks are represented as thick vertical bars on
screen, but a "Copy link location" turns them into ?s)

Has anyone run into this before? These links are just lovely in Netscape
(Communicator 4.51 at present), but IE slaughters them and renders them
unusable.

Any clues? 

Thanks,
Ken
Ken Irwin	                            		kirwin at wittenberg.edu
Reference/Electronic Resources Librarian	(937) 327-7594
Thomas Library, Wittenberg University