Search behavior on University of Bologna discovery tool: a quantitative and qualitative analysis

Abstract

This article has the purpose to identify the most common search techniques of patrons in a discovery tool and if the discovery is able to provide relevant answers to the queries. This study reports on the use of EBSCO Discovery Service of Bologna University, called AlmaStart. The analyzed data refers to 8 months, from January to April 2020 and from January to April 2021. This period allowed to verify if search behavior changed over time and if the closure of the libraries due to coronavirus lockdown affected it. The data, collected by Google Analytics, are analyzed through the use of the software Microsoft Excel and Atlas.ti, a tool for the qualitative analysis and categorization of textual data. The quantitative analysis refers to all collected data, the qualitative analysis refers to 4 specific days and to all search queries that did not conduct to any results in the discovery. The qualitative analysis allowed to verify if patrons mostly conduct searches about a theme, or if they use the discovery to search known-items in order to access or to localize them. Moreover, it was possible to identify some patron’s expectations about search queries that discovery is not able to satisfy and some ideas to improve it. The result reveals that during the library closure the use of the discovery tool increased a lot, but the search behaviour remained basically the same as in the other months. Patrons use the discovery mostly to search known-item in order to reach the full text of the documents. Finally, some elements to improve the discovery tool functionality were identified.