Isabella Marqués de Castilla
Library of Congress

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This study explores how library users seek information in the library online catalog and what information in the catalog record is important to them. Current graduate and undergraduate students of Yale, Georgia Tech, and Georgetown University served as the survey population. The results represent the collective data from the three institutions. The study demonstrates that library users value descriptive information and English subject headings in the catalog record of non-English material. The future of bibliographic information is secure as long as students’ information needs and searching practices are considered before changes to workflows are made or new technologies are adopted.