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Huda Khan, Astrid Usong, Tim Worrall
April 2021

GOAL

Understand how pages dedicated to author and subject information can help catalog users find relevant resources and information. 

METHODOLOGY

We sent out recruitment emails to the Mann and Olin student employee email lists and Olin grad student carrel holders.  When students responded, we scheduled a half hour Zoom session with them and sent them a link to the consent form.  During the Zoom session, after obtaining verbal consent from the participants, we provided a link to the tasks and link to the interface for them to evaluate.   We ended the session with a few follow up questions.   

PARTICIPANTS

5 undergraduate students

Name

Major/Field

01

Environment and Sustainability

02

Engineering

03

Linguistics and Asian Studies

04

Engineering

05

Architecture

SCHEDULE

April 9 - 19

KEY OUTCOMES

TASKS AND SCREENSHOT REFERENCES

This document outlines the tasks which are also repeated below along with relevant screenshots.

The pages for author tasks: 

The pages for subject tasks:


Author

You are learning about various English works and authors in the 1800s.  You are on the page for Middlemarch (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/10854756 ).  

Subject

You are exploring political events and conflict during the twentieth century.  You are interested in learning more about the Russo-Japanese war and how it may connect to other topics.  You are reviewing the item “The Russo-Japanese war in cultural perspective, 1904-1905” (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/3549938 ). 

Follow up questions

TABULATED SUMMARY

Participant

Author

Subject

Comments

1

Clicked on name link. Didn’t see info button. 

Were told to click on info button + view full record directly

Didn’t see alternate forms. Initially, participant tried to answer questions looking at the item record page as well as the full record page.  Said they did not find any alternate names when looking at the heading directly.  We began telling participants that they should try to answer the question on the full record page itself.

Found other information easily

For influence, first went to record page to look up editor information

For related topics, did not use broader/narrower. Used browse call numbers.  For related count question, did use broader/narrower listing. 

Didn’t see display all subjects and had to be told

Thought there would be a scroll button for catalog results (easier to navigate) but top three pretty good as well

Confusion around timeline.  Considered good way to visualize info along with broader/narrower.

Current practice: Look for research papers using subjects and not time periods.  Author suggestions and specific agricultural practices. 

Useful features: Would use related concepts.  Authors who wrote on same subject.  Influences.  Which works written first on timeline.

Digital collection: Had used Johnson Museum collection.

Repositories: Were not sure which repository they would use

2

Found info button and full record link right away

Thought alternate names would be included with other fields. Saw alternate forms and assumed label matched task. 

Directly found influences tab. 

Commented on scrolliness of timeline.  Was able to parse timeline accurately. 

Didn’t know what repositories meant but found the tab

Related topics: Considered or clicked on broader and narrower, call numbers.  Considered clicking on the book to see subjects there. 

Saw “works about” under broader topic (for related concept number of works)  

For timeline: tried to scroll to see other subjects, eventually found “display all subjects”, saw the subject for the page lost in lineup.  Wondered if catalog results would change. 

Current practice: More likely to look for subject related searches rather than author, because looking for topic (and topic within that) for my paper.  Wouldn’t use timeline or time period info.  Maybe location. Catalog results. 

Useful features: Other names (as in alternate names)- find more stuff in other search engines. Publication timeline and works seem most useful. Not sure what influences does 

Vaguely understood digital collections. Never heard of repositories. 

The scrolliness of histropedia seems very slippery.  Info button vs link: unclear.  “Full record” doesn’t just indicate what resulting page functionality. 

3

Did not know info button was clickable. Clicked on name link as first intuition to do so (and used to that).  Didn’t see full record until told. 

Alternate forms: Found tab for task but unclear what was meant by phrase. A different name? A pen name?

Related event: Looked at broader first and then narrower event. Unsure what “>” was for. 

Time periods: Clicked on narrower subject. Unclear on what to do.  Did not occur to click on display all subjects.  Suggested moving checkbox nearer to the timeline since distance between the checkbox and the timeline.

Narrower/broader: Thought of this as a tree hierarchy. Recommended showing more of the hierarchy and/or having “Russo-Japanese war” in the middle of the horizontal broader/narrower section. 

Current practice: look at author, what did they write about, subject matter, impressions.  Doesn’t usually use library catalog.  Relies on resources provided by class. JStor and encyclopedia.

Tasks they wouldn’t do: Broader/narrower or timeline.

Useful features: Narrower events (but not broader). Alternate forms (especially if author is not English/Western)

Knew about digital collection:had seen them as an option before

Not familiar with repositories

Features helpful but how to use not intuitive: info button, display all subject

4

Clicked on author link. Then clicked on info button, but looked at various elements in the panel first.  Had to be prompted to click on view full record. They said they saw the link but did not relate it to a link that would show them the information. 

Found date of birth but expected date of birth to be in the same set of fields as place of birth. 

Used alternate forms tab but may not have assumed label meant names they went by

Used map times for time period question. Saw location in the top panel

Didn’t see digital collections tab at first and went to call number browse, then click tab. 

Related topics: call numbers.

Broader/narrower on prompting

Found display all subjects

Current practice: Broader/narrower info.  Use Google (not library catalog). Usually have something in mind.  If not enough info, would like at all related info to see if any correlation would help.

Anticipated some kind of visual resources for digital collections. 

Not sure what a repository is. 

Didn’t think “barcode” (wikidata link?) was clickable.  

View full record: color same as info button and background same as large page, so not clear if looking at page behind it. 

5

Clicked on author link.  Thought info button just described the link as having information.  Clicked on view full record. 

Alternate forms: Eventually saw but wondered if these were names at different points in time or other spellings

Timeline: Zoom in works well

Works about: Saw library catalog results section

Related: broader and narrower

Timeline: unclear what is being summarized.  Eventually found display all subjects.  Wondered if all events related to Russia (on the map)?

Current practice: Look for author information such as birth.names.  Mostly only interested in books and articles and not categories/music. 

 Subject: look at Google for related subjects and catalog for specific books. May look for related authors and subjects if in catalog.

 Use Google or lecture references if looking at authors/subjects for class.

Useful features: Timeline for both author and subjects was helpful, even though didn’t understand whether timeline was related to subject. Helpful to contextualize. If subject involved many regions, map is useful. 

Digital collection: not sure how different from library resources

Repositories: Didn’t know what this was. 

OVERVIEW

Info button and full record link

Name link: 

Four out of five participants clicked first on the name link itself and had to be prompted or directed to click on the info button.   Only one participant clicked on the info button and “view full record” link to find information on their own and without any prompting.

Full record link:

Two participants clicked the “view full record” link on their own without being prompted while two other participants had to be prompted.  With the remaining participant, we had to prompt them to use the info button and then also directed them to use the “view full record” link so they were not asked to try to find that link on their own.  Two participants noted that the “view full record” link did not seem to describe the content on the resulting page. . One of the participants who was prompted to click the link said they had seen the link but did not think the link would take them to the intended information.  Additionally, they noted the “view full record” link had the same color as the info button and the same background as the underlying page so it was hard for them to distinguish between the link and the page.

Alternate names

Four participants saw and used the alternate names tab to complete the task of finding other names for George Eliot.  That said, two said they were unclear about the phrase “alternate forms” while one wondered whether the tab showed names for the person at different points in time.  One participant did not use the alternate forms tab and concluded there were no alternate names when looking at the author heading at the top of the page. 

Analysis: The author used for these tasks is George Eliot.  In this case, the name of the author used at the top of the page is in fact the pseudonym.  Participants weren’t given this information as part of the task.  Additionally, the alternate forms tab showed names in different languages with some strings displayed in a right to left order.  This last aspect may have made the dates appear different (when they were simply listed in right to left order instead)

Conclusion:  In addition to changing the term “alternate forms” to another term that more clearly indicates other names for the author, we should consider whether it would be useful to provide details regarding whether a name is a pseudonym or alternate spelling or the name in a different language since these scenarios are different from each other.  

Broader, narrower, and other related subjects

When asked to identify related subjects or the count of related subjects, four participants used information from the broader and narrower subjects section.  One participant had to be prompted to use this information. Another participant noted that they were unclear about the meaning of the “>” symbol displayed in between the broader and narrower columns.  Three participants also used the “browse call numbers” link to look at related subjects on that page.  

Digital collections and Repositories: 

All the participants found the tabs for digital collections and repositories when completing the tasks.  When asked if they were familiar with these sources, four indicated they had never heard of repositories and one said they were not sure which repository they would look at.  With respect to digital collections, one person stated they had seen this option before in the catalog while one stated they were not sure how digital collections were different from other library resources.  The remaining three had either seen similar collections (such as the Johnson Museum collection) or understood the term to mean a collection of visual resources. 

Conclusion: The role and content for these sources is not entirely clear, and we could do more to highlight the purpose of these sources. 

Subject timeline and map: 

Display all subjects checkbox:

When asked to see if they could see with which time periods other subjects in the catalog may be associated, three participants were able to find and use the “display all subjects” checkbox. Two participants did not see the checkbox.  One participant suggested the checkbox could be moved closer to the timeline to enable users to see the connection. 

Map and timeline function: 

All the participants were able to find related subjects on the subject timeline (check that this is true) once they had clicked the “display all subjects” checkbox.  Two participants indicated they were not clear regarding the role or function of the timeline, with one stating some level of confusion around the timeline’s purpose and the other saying they were unclear about what was being displayed on the timeline.  For the latter, they wondered if all the subjects were related to Russia.  It should be noted that Russia was one of the countries highlighted on the map as being related to the main subject in the task. 

Current search practices:

When asked about what kinds of search tasks users perform in their own work, all mentioned some use of subjects including related subjects and broader and narrower subjects.  Three participants mentioned that they look for or use information related to authors such as author suggestions or author birth names.  (?) participants noted they often use Google for searching for related subjects.  One participant noted they may also employ the library catalog to look at authors and subjects related to books. (Confirm)

Useful features: 

When asked which features from the prototype they may find useful, participants noted the following:

All participants noted that at least one feature related to subjects would be useful. Three participants noted the timeline for authors was helpful.  Two participants noted alternate forms or names would be useful.

NOTES FROM SESSIONS

Participant 1

Tasks

Author

You are learning about various English works and authors in the 1800s.  You are on the page for Middlemarch (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/10854756 ).  



Subject

You are exploring political events and conflict during the twentieth century.  You are interested in learning more about the Russo-Japanese war and how it may connect to other topics.  You are reviewing the item “The Russo-Japanese war in cultural perspective, 1904-1905” (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/3549938 ). 


When asked, they said the map shows locations for events because clicking on display all subjects showed the map as well.

Follow up questions


Q: How does research methodology change from topic don’t know anything about to one you know more about it?

Google Scholar to look for things and then would find I don’t have access and then see if I can find access in the library catalog.

Q: Specific features helpful when further along in research?

Lots of choices: way to find similar authors and subjects.  

Participant 2

Undergrad, engineering

Tasks


Author

You are learning about various English works and authors in the 1800s.  You are on the page for Middlemarch (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/10854756 ).  



Subject

You are exploring political events and conflict during the twentieth century.  You are interested in learning more about the Russo-Japanese war and how it may connect to other topics.  You are reviewing the item “The Russo-Japanese war in cultural perspective, 1904-1905” (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/3549938 ). 


“Do you want to see more results”?

    “Maybe click here to see more”

Like the map

Follow up questions




Participant 3

Tasks


Author

You are learning about various English works and authors in the 1800s.  You are on the page for Middlemarch (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/10854756 ).  


First intuition to click on the name.  Didn’t really to occur to me that the info button worked, and also didn’t really see full record until told.  Used to clicking the link. 

Alternate forms: goes by a different name or pen name, not sure what to make of that phrase. 

Subject

You are exploring political events and conflict during the twentieth century.  You are interested in learning more about the Russo-Japanese war and how it may connect to other topics.  You are reviewing the item “The Russo-Japanese war in cultural perspective, 1904-1905” (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/3549938 ). 


Did not occur to click on display all subjects. Maybe move to the display all subjects to be nearer the timeline. Sort of distance so don’t associate it with the timeline. 

Broader:

Think of a tree map: above

Narrower: smaller event under this subject

Maybe having Russo-Japanese War in the middle between broader and narrower

Showing more of the path/hierarchy

Follow up questions




Participant 4

(Set one of notes)

Tasks

Undergrad, college of engineering

Author

You are learning about various English works and authors in the 1800s.  You are on the page for Middlemarch (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/10854756 ).  



Subject

You are exploring political events and conflict during the twentieth century.  You are interested in learning more about the Russo-Japanese war and how it may connect to other topics.  You are reviewing the item “The Russo-Japanese war in cultural perspective, 1904-1905” (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/3549938 ). 

Saw works about for broader first than works about:500

Follow up questions


(Set two of notes)

Tasks


Author

You are learning about various English works and authors in the 1800s.  You are on the page for Middlemarch (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/10854756 ).  



Subject

You are exploring political events and conflict during the twentieth century.  You are interested in learning more about the Russo-Japanese war and how it may connect to other topics.  You are reviewing the item “The Russo-Japanese war in cultural perspective, 1904-1905” (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/3549938 ). 

When I was first looking, when asked to find works related, not sure it would related. 

Follow up questions





Participant 5

Undergrad, architecture (3rd year)

Tasks


Author

You are learning about various English works and authors in the 1800s.  You are on the page for Middlemarch (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/10854756 ).  



Subject

You are exploring political events and conflict during the twentieth century.  You are interested in learning more about the Russo-Japanese war and how it may connect to other topics.  You are reviewing the item “The Russo-Japanese war in cultural perspective, 1904-1905” (http://hjk54-dev.library.cornell.edu/catalog/3549938 ). 


Follow up questions


When looking at first example, saw things like birth place and dates relevant and places - if I was going to find info about author, wouldn’t necessarily about library holdings but more description of author (more similar if Googled info).