Failure analysis of subject searches in a test of a new design for subject access to online catalogs

This article describes the findings of a research project that tested a new subject‐access design in an experimental online catalog that had a wide range of subject‐searching capabilities and search trees to govern the system's selection of searching capabilities in response to user queries. Library users at two academic libraries searched this experimental catalog for topics of their own choosing, judged the usefuless of retrieved titles, and answered post‐search questions about their searching experiences. Mixed results from a quantitative analysis (i.e., precision scores) were supplemented with the more conclusive results from a qualitative analysis (i.e., failure analysis). Overall, analyses demonstrated that the new subject‐access design that featured search trees was more effective in selecting a subject‐searching approach that would produce useful information for the subjects users seek than users would select on their own. The qualitative analysis was especially helpful in providing recommendations for improving specific subject‐searching approaches to increase their efficiency, increase user perseverance, and encourage browsing. It also suggested enhancements to the new subject‐searching design to enable systems to respond to the wide variety of user queries for subjects. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.