[Web4lib] Have you defined "too many?"

[Karen Coyle]

Karen,
The weird thing that we found on the MELVYL system is that users look at 
an average of 2.5 pages before giving up. That gives you some idea of 
the amount that people are willing to look at ... EXCEPT that they 
looked at 2.5 pages no matter how many results were on the page! So a 
page with 2-3 records and a page with 20 records were both "a page" to 
the user. So it doesn't seem to be about the number of hits, it's some 
other factor, like the time to look at them. That's what makes coming up 
with an answer to this so very difficult.

kc

K.G. Schneider wrote:

>For a future scope of work for Librarians' Index, I'm thinking about a help
>file that would appear when there are too many results. 
>
>I had two thoughts about this (at least). 
>
>1. If the search is a good one, there is no such thing as "too many." In
>other words, who cares about refining the search when the first page or two
>gives you what you want.
>
>2. But on the other hand, getting a lot of hits in some databases may mean
>you're having trouble refining a search. 
>
>Pondering.
>
>Thoughts?
>
>Karen G. Schneider
>kgs at bluehighways.com
>
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>Web4lib mailing list
>Web4lib at webjunction.org
>http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>
>
>  
>

-- 
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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