Users’s Behavior In Accessing and Using Key Words to Retrive Business and Economic Information

Abstract

This study explores the users’ behavior in accessing and using key words to retrieve business and economic information using 2 study approaches: (1) critical incident technique for examining a study sample of 86 faculty members, graduate and undergraduate students of Khon Kaen and Mahasarakham Universities, (2) search log analysis for collecting key words created and used by the users via the universities’ OPAC. The study findings indicate that the faculty members mainly conduct database searches for their lesson planning and researching, and the students perform their searches for their learning and writing term papers. All users are found to use Internet and the libraries using key words for accessing the information since the Internet is convenient and easy to use and it provides a variety of information. In addition the key words devised by users considerably vary and hardly correspond with the library subject headings since the creation of key terms are based on each user’s experiences and needs.