Modeling and Evaluation of On-Line User Behavior

A study of transaction logs from NLM's ELHILL system provided data on user search behavior for the MEDLINE data base. The comparison of search patterns to previous studies findings provided insight into user behavior in an on-line search environment and the influence of search experience on this behavior. The methodology is such that findings across different types of data bases (periodical versus monographic) can be compared thus offering great potential in the study of on-line public catalog usage.