From access points to materials: A transaction log analysis of access point value for online catalog users

It is possible to obtain some insights into searchers' judgements by using transaction log analysis to associate online catalog search methods with decisions to retrieve location information. The Mainframe interface to Libraries Online (MILO) is an interface to the Illinois Library Computer Systems Office online union catalog for 45 academic libraries. MILO provides access to a bibliographic database and directly links to another database with circulation and location records. Because the latter database only provides location and circulation status, searchers' decisions to make links to such data are seen as an indication that the records being linked represent potentially useful material. Via a transaction log analysis, the linked location records were associated with the access points used to retrieve them in order to analyze the value and problems of searchers' uses of specific access points. Transaction logs were analyzed for a 38-day sample of the 1994 logs. Counting records retrieved through the use of multiple access points (making the total greater than 100%), subject fields were used to access over 30%, author fields to access over 19%, and title fields to access over 51% of all records linked to location information. Other fields were used to retrieve very small percentages of linked records.