Catalogue use by the Petherick Readers of the National Library of Australia

An online questionnaire survey was distributed amongst the Petherick Readers of the National Library of Australia, a user group of scholars and researchers. The survey asked questions about the readers' use and appreciation of the NLA catalogue. Almost all search options and limits were utilised by at least a quarter of respondents, and almost all elements in the record displays were considered sometimes or often useful by most respondents. This group of users, many of whom have made extensive use of the Library's collections over a long period of time, clearly appreciated the library catalogue and demonstrated that there are still library patrons who make extensive use of the sophisticated bibliographic access to a collection that it provides, despite the popularity of other information retrieval tools such as Web search engines.