User categorisation of works: toward improved organisation of online catalogue displays

Pages184-208
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000007143
Published date01 May 1999
Date01 May 1999
AuthorAllyson Carlyle
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Library & information science
USER CATEGORISATION OF WORKS: TOWARD IMPROVED
ORGANISATION OF ONLINE CATALOGUE DISPLAYS
ALLYSON CARLYLE
acarlyle@u.washington.edu
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Washington, Box 352930, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
This paper examines a user categorisation of documents related to a
particular literary work. Fifty study participants completed an
unconstrained sorting task of documents related to Charles Dickens’
A Christmas carol. After they had finished the sorting task, partic-
ipants wrote descriptions of the attributes they used to create each
group. Content analysis of these descriptions revealed categories of
attributes used for grouping. Participants used physical format,
audience, content description, pictorial elements, usage, and lan-
guage most frequently for grouping. Many of the attributes partic-
ipants used for grouping already exist in bibliographic records and
may be used to cluster records related to works automatically in
online catalogue displays. The attributes used by people in classify-
ing or grouping documents related to a work may be used to guide
the design of summary online catalogue work displays.
INTRODUCTION
The content and organisation of information presented in screen displays is critical
to the successful performance of online catalogues. Current research indicates that
many catalogue users do not look beyond the first few screens of search results
presented to them [e.g. 1], which places a significant burden on those screens to
present information clearly and effectively. Unfortunately, information displayed
in online catalogues is frequently in the form of long lists of unorganised biblio-
graphic records. Such lists do little to inform users of the nature of the materials
retrieved or to highlight the relationships present among those materials.
One strategy for improving the effectiveness of screen displays in online cat-
alogues is to summarise the contents of sets of retrieved records in one or two
screens instead of displaying long lists. Displays employing classification, clus-
tering, and other structured approaches have been suggested as a means of sum-
marising the contents of large sets of retrieved records. Massicotte [2], the
Association for Library Collections and Technical Services [3], Buckland,
Norgard, and Plaunt [4], Fattahi [5], and Yee and Layne [6], among others, argue
persuasively for the implementation of catalogue displays in which the infor-
mation presented is grouped or summarised. Larson [7] and McGarry and
Svenonius [8], for example, demonstrate that bibliographic records may be clus-
tered by subject in online catalogue displays. Svenonius [9] proposes clustering
184
Journal of Documentation, Vol. 55, No. 2, March 1999
© Aslib, The Association for Information Management.
All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
Aslib, The Association for Information Management
Staple Hall, Stone House Court, London EC3A 7PB
Tel: +44 (0) 171 903 0000, Fax: +44 (0) 171 903 0011
Email: pubs@aslib.co.uk, WWW: http://www.aslib.co.uk/aslib
184
Journal of Documentation, vol. 55, no. 2, March 1999, pp. 184–208
of records representing editions of the same work in displays based on relation-
ships among items.
One of the questions that may be asked prior to the construction of clustered
displays for online catalogues is, On what basis should such displays be construct-
ed? Interface design for information retrieval systems is frequently based on the
intuition and judgement of systems designers, or on the structure and content of the
database. For instance, in much of the research cited in the previous paragraph,
clustering is based on the content of individual records. An alternative to system-
designer or content-centred design is design based on user behaviour [e.g. 10].
Ideally, information retrieval systems will reflect users’ perceptions and
expectations, so that the information presented to them is understandable, and
responds effectively to their needs. Unfortunately, few information retrieval sys-
tems have been designed based on empirical study of user behaviour and percep-
tions. One reason for this is the lack of sufcient research on user behaviour.
A notable exception is BOOK HOUSE, a fiction retrieval system based on in-
depth study of user queries for fiction [11]. The development of BOOK HOUSE
was preceded by research that included an analysis of three hundred user-librari-
an conversations, identifying dimensions of works of fiction that users mentioned
in their searches for new fiction to read [12].
To construct clustered displays that respond to user needs and perceptions,
empirical research must be conducted that identifies the categories of documents
that people use naturally and describe frequently. The research reported here
investigates how people organise documents related to a particular work. In the
study, participants sorted documents related to Charles Dickens’
A Christmas
carol into groups. For each group the participants created, they wrote a descrip-
tion of the attribute or attributes used to form that group. These descriptions are
analysed using content analysis to discover the categories of attributes users
employed in sorting. The frequency with which each of the categories was
employed is also calculated. Finally, the categories are evaluated for their suit-
ability for use in current online catalogue displays.
RATIONALE
Facilitation of the location of the editions of a work is one of the functions, or
objects, of the library catalogue. This function, as articulated by Lubetzky,
requires the catalogue to ‘relate and display together the editions which a library
has of a given work’ [13, p. ix]. Card and book catalogues frequently employ
highly organised displays to meet this objective [14]. Categories of editions and
works related to a particular work were arranged in classified displays to facilitate
the location of particular editions, translations, adaptations, etc. of that work.
Classified displays serve the second objective of the catalogue because they high-
light relationships among items by grouping like items together.
Organised displays have seldom been incorporated into online catalogue
designs. Research by Carlyle [15] shows that records relevant to searches for
individual works existing in many editions are frequently scattered randomly
among irrelevant records. Some evidence also exists indicating that poorly
designed catalogue displays contribute to search failure. For instance, a study of
March 1999 USER CATEGORISATIONS
185
Journal of Documentation, Vol. 55, No. 2, March 1999
© Aslib, The Association for Information Management.
All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
Aslib, The Association for Information Management
Staple Hall, Stone House Court, London EC3A 7PB
Tel: +44 (0) 171 903 0000, Fax: +44 (0) 171 903 0011
Email: pubs@aslib.co.uk, WWW: http://www.aslib.co.uk/aslib

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