"Din sökning gav tyvärr inga träffar"
en kvalitativ enkätstudie om användares svårigheter med att söka noter i Statens musikbiblioteks onlinekatalog
Sheet musicOnline library catalogsClassificationLibrary usersMusic librariesMusikalierOnlinekatalogerSAB-systemetKlassifikationBiblioteksanvändareMusikbibliotek
The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to study how well the online catalogue of The Music Library of Sweden works when ordinary users are searching for sheet music. The issues studied are: Why do the users fail to find the sheet music they are looking for? Do the users take advantage of the possibilities that the classification codes of the SAB system offer? If not, why?The source material of the study is 144 comments from a user questionnaire about the online catalogue and, in addition, the search log for one day (513 queries). The comments were sorted into seven groups depending on the type of information need, for example searches for certain instrumentation or genres and problems with spelling. Each analysis ends with suggestions for improvements of the catalogue and its instructions.The thesis show, according to the Zipf?s principle of least effort, that sheet music searching in the online catalogue is demanding too much effort and knowledge of the users. Searching with SAB classification codes is too complicated which may be the explanation why only 2 percent of the queries in the log are code searches. In 51 of the 76 cases where users failed to find sheet music the queries would have succeeded if the patrons had used classification codes. The SAB system is thus not used as often as it deserves.The variety and amount of failed queries in the material show that sheet music is difficult to search, for several reasons, for example the complex construction of uniform titles of musical works and that the searchable vocabulary of the online catalogue often differ from the users? own.