[WEB4LIB] Re: Ejournals and subjects - and browsing

[Tim Bucknall BUCKNALL]

I certainly appreciate serendepity. As a librarian, I'm somewhat 
embarassed to admit that serendipity was one of my most effective research 
strategies when researching my thesis! I know, I know, I should have used 
citation searching and other more "effective" approaches. :)

But serendipity can come in many forms. It is true that a patron could 
adopt a general approach to a specific subject area by browsing a list of 
journal titles that are under the heading "archeology". But the patron 
could just as easily go into a federated search engine, or Google, or a 
specialized database, and type "archeology". Either approach is fairly 
serendipitous and will yield things of greatly varying degrees of 
relevance. So I don't see that de-emphasizing a subject approach to 
journal titles really hurts serendipity too much.

I agree with Larry that libraries need to balance the researcher's 
unhurried joy of unexpected discoveries in a library collection, with the 
desire of many folks to find specific data and just to get the heck out of 
the library as fast as they can. It's a balance that is at times difficult 
to achieve...




Larry Campbell <larry.campbell at ubc.ca> 
Sent by: web4lib at webjunction.org
11/30/2004 11:23 AM
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larry.campbell at ubc.ca


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[WEB4LIB] Re: Ejournals and subjects - and browsing







Thanks for the reponse, Tim, and you make a number of good points, 
certainly. Regarding subject lists, though, I'd ask these questions: do 
we know how many people, engaged in so-called "information seeking 
behavior", are not seeking any particular known item and also not really 
looking for particular key words, but really would just like to see 
what's available lately in a broad academic topic or discipline -- in 
other words, are browsing or would like to browse? And how important is 
that kind of serendipitous curiosity, or just desire to "keep up", for 
students, researchers and scholars generally? And, if it's at all 
important, how do we provide adequate compensation, in our presentation 
of eresources as a whole, for the loss of a physical environment which 
typically afforded such opportunities for print resources?

Just throwing these questions out. Your point about the possiblities for 
being led astray by subject lists of titles is well taken.

Larry Campbell
Librarian, Information Technology Services
UBC Library
Email: larry.campbell at ubc.ca
Telephone: (604) 822-2076


Tim Bucknall BUCKNALL wrote:
> We have a homegrown link resolver and knowledge base at the University 
of 
> North Carolina at Greensboro. In it, we created subject divisions that 
> correspond to the academic departments on our campus. We also added a 
few 
> subjects for which UNCG does not offer degrees - Medicine, Engineering, 
> General, Trade Publications - because there were so many journals in 
those 
> areas.
> 
> This method of organizing is obviously great for accreditation purposes 
> because it makes it so easy to see which journals we have for each 
> department. On the other hand, having such broad subject areas means 
that 
> some of the lists have grown to the point that they are somewhat 
unwieldy. 
> We could make the lists shorter by creating more specific subject 
headings 
> or sub-headings within each department, but my experience at the 
Reference 
> Desk and some usability testing of Journal Finder lead me to believe 
that 
> would be a mistake. Here's why-
> 
> It is extremely rare that patrons really want a list of journals 
relating 
> to a particular topic. When patrons want journal literature on a certain 

> subject, at least 90% of the time they really ought to be looking in 
> article indexes, not in a subject listing of journal titles. For 
example, 
> a patron wanting journal literature on "cancer treatment" should be 
> looking in Medline, not in a list of journal titles that list that as a 
> subject heading.
> 
> When you make a prominent "subject" link in your list of journal titles 
> and when you make those subjects fairly specific and searchable, then my 

> usage data and usabilty testing shows that it hurts more folks than it 
> helps. In other words, you get LOTS of folks innappropriately searching 
> your journal title subjects for "cancer treatment" or "Maya Angelou" or 
> "IBM and product innovation" some other article topic and, of course, 
> getting no results.
> 
> So, in Journal Finder we relegate the subject listing to the "Advanced 
> Search" page. Few people use it, but few people are misled by what it 
> does.
> 
> You can take a look by clicking on the "Advanced Search" link from
> http://journalfinder.uncg.edu/uncg
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Larry Campbell <larry.campbell at ubc.ca> 
> Sent by: web4lib at webjunction.org
> 11/29/2004 05:26 PM
> Please respond to
> larry.campbell at ubc.ca
> 
> 
> To
> Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
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> Subject
> [WEB4LIB] Ejournals and subjects
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hi all.
> 
> I'm interested in the subject-, topic-, or discipline-based 
> categorization of ejournal titles, and hoping to get some information 
> about practices at different libraries. I'd appreciate any details re:
> - do you provide such subject access for ejournal titles at all?
> - if so, what is the basis for determining the subject categories:
>    -- LC or Dewey classification?
>    -- LC, Me or other Subject Headings?
>    -- Academic disciplines (how defined?)?
>    -- Other (what?)?
> 
> Thanks for any help at all -- reply to me personally, and I'd be happy 
> to summarize for the list if anyone is interested.
> 
> Larry Campbell
> Librarian, Information Technology Services
> UBC Library
> Email: larry.campbell at ubc.ca
> Telephone: (604) 822-2076
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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