<p>The purpose of this thesis is to examine the usability of the Umeå University library catalogue Album. The aim is to evaluate the catalogue in order to establish if there are any problems that could be solved by modifying the catalogue. The following questions are answered: How should a good catalogue be designed? Which problems are common when using a library catalogue? Is Album user friendly? Are there any problems that occur when using Album and how can the catalogue be changed to avoid the problems? To answer these questions I have performed a usability test in which five persons, all students, got to carry out twenty tasks in the catalogue and talk about what they were doing and thinking while doing the test. This method is a usability method called Think Aloud. After the test the users got to answer twenty interview questions about the catalogue. The material obtained from the test was analyzed and positive factors, problems and courses of action were picked out. The results of the study show that the hardest thing for the users is to perform subject searches. It is not clear what subject and classification is and the users don’t know how to search the Index. They also think it’s hard to know in which fields to search and which words to use. In this thesis I give suggestions to things that could be changed in Album to make it more user friendly and easy to use. Although there are some problems with the catalogue, the overall impression of Album seems to be positive among the users.</p>

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the usability of the Umeå University library catalogue Album. The aim is to evaluate the catalogue in order to establish if there are any problems that could be solved by modifying the catalogue. The following questions are answered: How should a good catalogue be designed? Which problems are common when using a library catalogue? Is Album user friendly? Are there any problems that occur when using Album and how can the catalogue be changed to avoid the problems? To answer these questions I have performed a usability test in which five persons, all students, got to carry out twenty tasks in the catalogue and talk about what they were doing and thinking while doing the test. This method is a usability method called Think Aloud. After the test the users got to answer twenty interview questions about the catalogue. The material obtained from the test was analyzed and positive factors, problems and courses of action were picked out. The results of the study show that the hardest thing for the users is to perform subject searches. It is not clear what subject and classification is and the users don’t know how to search the Index. They also think it’s hard to know in which fields to search and which words to use. In this thesis I give suggestions to things that could be changed in Album to make it more user friendly and easy to use. Although there are some problems with the catalogue, the overall impression of Album seems to be positive among the users.

The purpose of this study is to investigate if three scientific articles concerning the cataloguing of alba amicorum written in the 1980’s and early 1990’s had any influence on the cataloguing of alba amicorum. Another purpose is to investigate the similarities and differences between the catalogues from the late 1980’s and onward. The focus lies on the categories used when cataloguing the alba. Alba amicorum are catalogued on two levels: on a general level, i.e. the album as a whole is catalogued and in addition all the inscriptions in the album are cata-logued separately, the so-called leaf cataloguing. The study uses a comparative method. First the three scientific articles are compared with each other, then nine catalogues of alba amicorum from 1988 and onward, five printed and four online ones, are investigated regarding which categories are used respectively not used in the different catalogues. Then the categories pro-posed in the scientific articles are compared with the ones used in the catalogues. One result of the study is that the differences in the cataloguing on the general level between the printed catalogues are small but that the variation is larger amongst the online ones. The same patterns cannot be seen regarding the leaf cataloguing; here the variation between the catalogues is generally somewhat larger but the most central categories can be found in all catalogues. Another result is that some of the categories in the cata-logues reflect the printed or online form of the catalogue. The study shows that it is hard to define exactly which influence the scientific articles had on the catalogues but that it probably hasn’t been that large. Many of the categories occurring in the catalogues have been used when cataloguing alba amicorum since the early 1900’s. Maybe one could say that the alba themselves are con-stituted in such a way that it is more or less natural which categories should be used when cataloguing them. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.

Introduction. Studies have been conducted on serendipitous encounters in the physical library environment. In this study, we aimed instead to look at features in the online library catalog that can lead to serendipitous en-counters. The aim was also to see if libraries took active steps to promote serendipity in their online library cata-logs. Method. A heuristic evaluation of four online library catalogs was conducted. The set of heuristics used was based on previous research, with the aim of identifying facets of a serendipitous environment. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with librarians from three of the researched libraries. The results from the heuristic evaluation and the transcripts of the interviews formed the data for the analysis. Analysis. Thematic analyses were carried out on the data. The data from the heuristic evaluation and the interviews were analyzed and presented separately, leading up to a joint summary. Results. Most of the online library catalogs had features like "Similar items" and book recommendations, which can lead to serendipitous encounters. Librarians often experience a lack of influence over their online library catalogs. Librarians identified problems such as patrons expecting their online library catalog to function more like a web search engine, for example, Google Search. Conclusion. The online library catalogs have features that promote serendipitous encounters but we identified problems in how they are best designed. Using an integrated interface for the online library catalog and the library's website was one way to give the librarians more influence over their interface, which increased their likelihood to provide it with more information and content. We suggest further research with an extensive approach of serendi-pitous encounters not only in the online library catalog but also in other digital library environments such as web-sites, social media, blogs and apps. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

<p>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?</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p>

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.