Initial articles in library catalog title searches: An impediment to information retrieval

Abstract Initial articles have posed difficulty for end‐users since the first online library catalogs. This study examines the way users search using left‐anchored title searches for items that contain insignificant initial articles in a library catalog. It also investigates how users react when they do not find an item because their search phrase included an insignificant initial article. The results show that a considerable number of users do not find existing titles that have insignificant initial articles because their search strategy does not coincide with the way the Library Management System was designed to handle index and retrieve these titles. Suggestions for further research are offered.