Abbreviations, Full Spellings, and Searchers’ Preferences

an article by Jeffrey Beal published in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly Volume 49 Issue 6 (2011)

Abstract

This study examined ten, selected word pairs, each containing a word’s full spelling and its abbreviation, to determine which form search engine users preferred in searching. Using seven search logs gathered from several Internet search engines with approximately 608 MB of data, the study measured the occurrences of the twenty terms. The selected words are important in library cataloging, for some are prescribed abbreviations in metadata content standards. The study found that in eight of the ten word pairs users preferred to search words’ full spellings over the abbreviations, often by a high margin.

Hazel’s comment:
I managed to get to read this article in full and found it fascinating. The word pairs used were:

• corporation : corp.
• government : govt. [98.2%  of searchers use full word but cataloguers go almost equally the other way]
• limited:  ltd [depends on whether British company]
• miscellaneous : misc
• California : Calif.
• department : dept
• departments : depts
• Boulevard : Blvd
• Internal Revenue Service : IRS or I.R.S.

If you can get access to the full text then do please do so. You'll soon discover why your users are not finding the information that you, the cataloguer, have so carefully crafted so that they can.

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