Monday, July 28, 2008

Searching and Searching Some More

I recently took some time to review search terms....... something I'm sure everyone is jumping up and down to do! What are search terms, you ask? When you go to the website and put something you're looking for in the search box, that information is captured.

Why, you might ask, is this important? Well, by reviewing one month's worth of data, we hope to come up with better ways and methods to help you find what you are looking for! (Don't worry - no personal information is captured so we have no idea who enters what terms in our site!)

A good example would be searching for "princess" and choosing "the site" to find the Disney Princess books. When I look at the search results, I don't find any......so what are my options? We hope you're asking a staff person for help, but if it's 10:00 at night then chances are you're not....... Another example are the searches for "school reading lists." We have put lots of time and effort into making these available......on the teen website.......so you would not necessarily find these by searching the adult site! Without going into technical detail, the search you perform on the http://www.arapahoelibraries.org/ does not search the teensite or the kidsite. So we need to do what we can with the websites to make them better for you!

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