Searching for information in an online public<br />access catalogue (OPAC): The impacts of information search expertise on the use of Boolean operators

International audienceBoolean systems still constitute most of the installed base of online public access catalogues(OPACs) in the French universities even if many studies have shown that Boolean operatorsare not frequently used by ‘non-librarian' users (by contrast with professional librarians).The first study examined the use of Boolean operators by French university students; In thesecond study, elaborated to evaluate the impact of information search expertise on this use,Boolean operators are explicitly presented and participants were explicitly invited to usethem. We assumed that university students would not frequently use the operators insearching, and that even if they were explicitly invited to make use of them. Results obtainedwith the first study based on transaction logs analyses confirmed that French universitystudents did not frequently use Boolean operators. The impact of information search expertise,analysed in the second study, compared three levels of expertise: Novice (universitystudents), intermediate (future professional librarians), and expert (professional librarians).Results showed that, even if the three groups were invited to use Boolean operators, this useincreased significantly with the level of information search expertise. University students, ifthey manage procedural functions of connectives in natural language, do not always managethe whole set of procedural functions carried by such connectives when used in the documentarylanguage. So, the relevance of presenting explicit Boolean operators in the OPACswhen users are ‘non-librarians' is questioned