ENHANCING A NEW DESIGN FOR SUBJECT ACCESS TO ONLINE CATALOGS

Search trees are a set of paths with branches or choices that enable a system to carry out the most sensible search approach at each stage o f a search. A new design for subject access to online catalogs enlists search trees to identify the characteristics of end-user queries for subjects, control system responses, and determine appropriate subject- searching approaches in response to the subject queries users entered, The purpose of this article is to identify characteristics of the mos t difficult user queries and recommend enhancements to the new subject -searching design to enable it to produce useful retrievals in respons e to the wide variety of queries users pose to online catalogs, Online catalogs governed by search trees are more effective than the users t hemselves in selecting subject-searching approaches that would produce useful information for the subjects users seek. The enhanced search t rees presented and tested in this article enlist subject-searching app roaches that are not typical of the functionality of operational onlin e catalogs. Design and development is required to upgrade existing onl ine catalogs with search trees and new subject-searching functionality to be successful in responding with useful retrievals to the most dif ficult user queries.