In order to compare the value of subject descriptors and title keywords as entries to subject searches, two studies were carried out. Both studies concentrated on monographs in the humanities and social sciences, held by the online public access catalogue of the National Library of the Netherlands. In the first study, a comparison was made by subject librarians between the subject descriptors and the title keywords of 475 records. They could express their opinion on a scale from 1 (descriptor is exactly or almost the same as word in title) to 7 (descriptor does not appear in title at all). It was concluded that 37 per cent of the records are considerably enhanced by a subject descriptor, and 49 per cent slightly or considerably enhanced. In the second study, subject librarians performed subject searches using title keywords and subject descriptors on the same topic. The relative recall amounted to 48 per cent and 86 per cent respectively. Failure analysis revealed the reasons why so many records that were...
['H.J. Voorbij']
Title keywords and subject descriptors : A comparison of subject search entries of books in the humanities and social sciences