Subject access in online catalogs: A design model

A model based on strikingly different philosophical as. sumptions from those currently popular is proposed for the design of online subject catalog access. Three design principles are presented and discussed: uncertainty (subject indexing is indeterminate and probabilistic beyond a certain point), variety (by Ashby’s law of requisite variety, variety of searcher query must equal variety of document indexing), and complexity (the search process, particularly during the entry and orientation phases, is subtler and more complex, on several grounds, than current models assume). Design features presented are an access phase, including entry and orientation, a hunting phase, and a selection phase. An end-user thesaurus and a front-end system mind are presented as examples of online catalog system components to improve searcher success during entry and orientation. The proposed model is “wrapped around” existing Library of Congress subject-heading indexing in such a way as to enhance access greatly without requiring reindexing. It is argued that both for cost reasons and in principle this is a superior approach to other design philosophies.

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