The Path of Least Resistance: Optimizing Metadata Practices through User Assessment

Abstract

As part of a multi-faceted research project examining user engagement with various types of descriptive metadata to improve metadata services, Utah State University Libraries Cataloging and Metadata Services unit investigated user search behavior in library catalog (MARC) records, Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aids, and most recently in digital collection metadata. The authors used web log analysis to determine how users interacted with CONTENTdm, categories of search terms used, and where search terms were found in a record. Key findings included that navigation through CONTENTdm using clickable queries (links) is a prominent user search pattern, dates are an important faceting tool and date ranges as a clickable link are heavily used, users demonstrated a more engaged research pattern when searching with geographic terms, and subject and transcription metadata fields match user search terms at a significant rate and are likely to be high drivers of search results.

Keywords:

• CONTENTdm
• user-search behavior
• web log analysis
• Dublin core metadata

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank our colleague, Kurt Meyer (Cataloger, Utah State University), for his support during this project.

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Table 8. Breakdown of unique terms, number of URLs, and sum of pageviews for search categories from user-generated queries.