Fiction retrieval in enriched library systems

Abstract

Recreational reading is an important part of people's everyday life in many countries. Borrowing books and leisure reading are the most popular activities among library users, and most of the books borrowed in the public libraries are fiction. Although it is known that leisure reading concentrates mostly on fiction, and fiction readers make up a large portion of the public library clientele, we have little information on how readers are currently using library catalogues for fiction searching. Current knowledge on users' search behavior with digital systems has mainly focused on retrieving for non-fiction. Also in system development the focus has been on retrieving for non-fiction. In spite of the development of library catalogues and digital content description methods for fiction collections, research on the usability of new content description tools as a part of fiction retrieval in online catalogues is lacking. There is a gap in our understanding of how people currently search for recreational reading material in online catalogues and how these enriched catalogues support this activity in different reader groups.