A study of the searching behavior at the catalog in a university library : case study of Jeonbug national university library

대학도서관의 목록이용행태의 일고찰

A library catalog is most important finding tool to a library collection. This tool should be so designed as to enable users to handle with ease and convenience. Library catalog use study is necessary in order to identify the demands made on the catalog by its actual users and to measure the adequacy with which the catalog is meeting these demands. Many major catalog use surveys were performed by means of questionnaire and interview, but these methods are so difficult and perverse that the results of catalog use studies might often be far from scientific precision. The aim of this paper is to seek the guidelines with which one might assist the catalogers in providing an effective library catalog for their patrons. In order to get the first-hand information an actual survey was undertaken on searching behavior at the catalog of Jeonbug National University Library from November 30 to December 5, 1981 and from May 17 to May 22, 1982. The results of the survey can be summarized as follows: 1. Most of the students (79.77%) use the library. 2. Most of the library patrons (74.52%) use the public catalog as the searching tool to the library collection. 3. 67.85% of the catalog users are interested in searching materials written in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. 4. 72.86% of the catalog users are interested in searching known items at catalog. 5. In known item searching, 49.44% of the catalog users choose title entry. 6. 20.17% of the catalog users are interested subject searching at the catalog. 7. Reference card is not utilized in searching. 8. For the translated items users want double entries in both vernacular and Korean. 9. At current catalog description, author, title, call number, translator, publisher and joint author are useful entry. Edition, author's date of birth and death, illustrative, size of book and bibliographical notes are not much utilized. 10. 55.39% of the catalog user need systematic guidance on how to use the library catalog and collection.