Searching for known items: comparing search results for books in Millennium (III) and Primo at Boston University Libraries
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Date
2013-06-19
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Authors
Ammerman, Jack
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OA Version
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Abstract
This study attempts to compare the effectiveness of searching for “known items” in Primo and the Millennium OPAC. Boston University Libraries provided both the Millennium OPAC and Primo for a period of 16 months. During that period bibliographic records were regularly harvested from Millennium to be loaded in Primo. Millennium has since been decommissioned, leaving Primo as the sole discovery interface.
The methodology for the study was adapted from a similar study done by Steve R. Thomas from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The results do add weight to Thomas’ conclusions that searching for known items in Primo is as effective as searching in a traditional OPAC like Aleph. In this study, Primo consistently outperformed Millennium. Emerging questions are: what is significantly different about the user experience that results in the perception that known item searching is more difficult in Primo? And, how can the Libraries address the issue?
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Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States