Information Takes Over

ALA TechSource | How OPACs Suck, Part 1: Relevance Rank (Or the Lack of It)

Karen Schneider:“Without a search engine to provide relevance ranking, most catalog search results are simply ranked last in/first out (which is the way databases think). Whatever was most recently cataloged will show up first. (Sometimes a catalog will lamely explain that the results are sorted by “date.” That means “last-in first-out,” and it’s no excuse for relevance ranking.)”

My library catalogue doesn’t explicitly allow me to order my results by relevence, but is it necessary?

A KEYWORD search for million (Karen’s search term, and arguably not exactly specifying what one might be looking for with any exactitude) returns some 76 hits, while a TITLE search returns 30.

So assuming I specifically wanted a book devoted to the term million, using the title search returns perfectly acceptable results.

On the other hand, assuming that I wanted to see ’stuff’ in the catalogue that might help me refine my query, a keyword search would give me an idea of how many things were potentially related to my term. I could then browse a few pages to see what was around.

Ideally I would want to be able to search an index to see what occurences of my term there were, and whether there where others that might also be applicable. Sadly in my library catalogue, the subject index is hidden away on the advanced search pages; and then only if you know that “Browse a list” doesn’t have anything to do with reading lists.
I think the real issue at stake here, and highlighted by the discussion around Karen’s post, is the information literacy of our users.

If we have an attitude toward searching that agrees with the statement “our users can only cope with a google stylee interface, that hands them a bunch of results some algorithm has prioritised.” Then surely we are missing the point? Previously I have talked about adding ‘tips’ to search results, to highlight services that we offer. Here again, is an opportunity to encourage better searching by providing hints. “Did you know, you may find more relevant items if you search in the title field?”

NCSU is a good example of exposing search strategies to the user, the “Narrow results by:” sidebar allows the user to instantly take on board the idea that they might need to narrow their search, and do some thing about it. Scopus too, allows the user to easily limit the results, not from the advanced search interfce, but directly in the search results.
I am not saying that relevance is bad, and that search engine technology is bad. I am suggesting that we remember that our users CAN learn. They are not thick. If you show them a way to improve the quality of their results by using a search strategy, or by highlighting a piece of functionality, such as displaying clickable descriptors, then they will thank you and be happy.

(unless of course you haven’t got it in stock! )

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