The Faceted Catalog as a Tool for Searching Monographic Series: Usability Study of Lens

This study explored the functionality of the University of Chicago's faceted catalog, Lens, in respect to monographic series. A user study was designed to evaluate the efficiency of Lens in searching for monographic series and also to determine whether controlled series access in the catalog record improves the search results. The results of the study indicate that while Lens could be considered an adequate tool for searching series that are known to be published under the same title, some changes would make it a better search engine for a series that changes series statements from one volume to another.