Exploring Users’ Online Search Behaviour: a preliminary study in a library collection

The purpose of this study was to investigate the search behaviour of users. Undergraduate and postgraduate users from the Department of Archives and Library Sciences, Ionian University, were invited to indicate the way they formulate and reformulate their queries. Students were asked to formulate queries and complete a questionnaire. Responses from the questionnaires and data collected from log files provided us with valuable information concerning the number of terms users type in the searching field, the type of failed queries users make and whether users reformulate their queries by using terms provided in the retrieved results. Results revealed that users mainly type in the searching field one term per query. Furthermore typographical errors, and specifically the substitution of a character with another, appeared to be the main reason for failed queries. Additionally, the vast majority of respondents declared that they used a term from the retrieved results. And finally, it is worth mentioning that users have equal chances to direct their queries in either a more specified or generalised term, whereas their choice of submitting parallel terms outweighed all other strategies.