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Abstract

Reports results of 2 separate but related projects to study the influence of spelling errors (misspellings), made by searchers, on the subject searching of online catalogues and to suggest ways of improving error detection systems to handle the errors that they detect. This involved the categorization of user queries for subjects that were extracted from the online catalogue transaction logs of 4 USA university libraries. The research questions considered: the prevalence of misspellings in user queries for subjects; and how users respond to online catalogues that detect possible spelling errors in their subject queries. Less than 6% of user queries that match the catalogue's controlled and free text terms were found to contain spelling errors. While the majority of users corrected misspelled query words, a sizable proportion made an action that was even more detrimental than the original misspelling. Concludes with 3 recommended improvements: online catalogues should be equipped with search trees to place the burden of selecting a subject the system instead of the user; systems should be equipped with automatic spelling checking routines that inform users of possibly misspelled words; and online catalogues should be enhanced with tools and techniques to distinguish between queries that fail due to misspellings and correction failures. Cautions that spelling is not a serious problem but can seriously hinder the most routine subject search