Library of Congress Table of Contents Survey results

How did you find the TOC file?

From the bibliographic record in a library catalog: 216

From an Internet search (Yahoo, AltaVista, etc.): 130

From the TOC files directory: 10

Other: 5

Was this TOC information useful?

yes: 301

no: 57

Did you go to the bibliographic record from the link on the TOC page?

yes: 211

no: 150

Did you look over the bibliograpic record?

yes: 106

no: 78

n/a: 181

Did you try any of the links for related authors, subjects, etc.?

yes: 46

no: 78

n/a: 236

Was this related information useful?

yes: 53

no: 26

n/a: 278

How would you describe yourself/your activity when you found the TOC?

researcher or student looking for information: 213

casual user looking for information: 53

librarian: 83

other: 17

Exec. of non-profit agency
Professional looking for a colleague by name
Trying to find a friend
Consultant looking for info.
I am interested in buying this book
Faculty member looking for resources for class
Special contractor
Employee, City of Stonnington (VLGA) [Australia]
Personal job hunt research
Student doing class exercise
Planner
Auditor
Entrepreneur

Comments:

I look for them [TOCs] on book seller web sites all the time. I find TOC incredibly useful.

I hoped it was a full text version of the entire book. That would have been a happy surprise.

I was looking for bibliography [sic] references in the book--couldn't find them.

Not sure yet [if TOC useful]. This was a starting point to try to narrow a broad research topic.

Very nice added feature [librarian]

Not really [useful], I am looking to do a research project but can't seem to come up with a problem or opportunity and thought I might get ideas.

It would be helpful to be able to print more detail information and do more research in the information that is in the book that was located.

Easy to manage search engine [suggestion]

Please experiment with including the table of contents in tag 505 [librarian]

I'm copy cataloging a book right now. The link to this TOC saves me the effort of retyping the TOC in the local system. [It] saves time!

Found it while cataloging the book. Saves me doing analytics! Will be as helpful as people are willing to realize it CAN be.

Maybe you can provide more details on the TOC of this title [we don't know which TOC the user was looking at].

But how do I get access to the contents of the book?

Librarian looking for as much information online as possible for patron

[Looking for] social-political impact of development cooperation in Tanzania

Prefer to have TOC in the MARC record so that it will be available for searching in out OPAC; NASA Ames Research Center, Va.

I found the TOC to be very helpful. My company often borrows books from other libraries. As a corporation, we are watching our budget. TOCs 'help me decide if a book would be worth the charges that I will incur with an ILL; Delphi Engineering Library, Flint, MI

I could not access it [the full text]. The table of contents was like looking at a new toy train set through the store window except in this case I could not see the contents [i.e. the full text] or even a place to buy the book. Very unsatisfying to someone looking up gas fired toilets [sic].

This sure looks like a great find on the web. Can you help me access it? Patrick Dolan, Pres. Alcyone Plumbing Co. Inc. Massapequa, NY

I could not access the information [full text]. Found this site to be an unfriendly site. Search gave results that did not pertain to the information I was looking for.

It was nice to finally get into a web site that I can access information directly without finding advertisements.

At least abstract of paper should be displayed.

[Helpful?] A little. I need more, but maybe I can track down what I found here. More active links!

Please make the TOC look more like the table of contents from a book. The type was so small and light with nothing to draw you to it, that I almost didn't bother to look at it. [This is controlled by browser settings on the user's machine]

We also purchase the service Book Jackets and TOC from our library software company. In this particular case, the TOC was offered both ways, by clicking on TOC in the catalog or going to the web by clicking on the link in the 856. We are an academic library and TOC is an immense help to our students in saving time during searches. To offer TOC two ways is much better than no way.

I am a marketing major and I need resources. Looking for study material related to marketing.
We were interested in purchasing this book, but had little information from advertising blurb. This makes the decision to purchase the book much easier (takes out the guess work). Library technician, Iluka Resources Library

I was checking the work of a new copy cataloger when I saw this link. What a great idea! Transylvania University Library, Lexington, KY

Particulars regarding price of the book, name of publisher etc. also could have been included for the benefit of prospective buyers.

Gave me more info on sections contained within the book, making a decision on how relevant the book was to my needs.

I'm going to take the book out of the Brooklyn Library and I already found out it is available. If the book I wanted were checked out and not available, I might find this TOC file really helpful. For today, it just confirmed that I should go to the library ASAP and get the book, since it is dead on what I want. I usually think in terms of my local library and catalog since I try to find what I can borrow here in my city, so looking at the LOC site in more detail doesn't seem to make sense in these instances. There is one other item that I did find the Brooklyn Library didn't have so the LOC link did really help.

[info was useful] I am not that computer literate. I have a hard time finding my way around. I was trying to find info. on the relationship between mmbtus and mcfs and their calculated differences according to price.

Library cataloging staff, San Diego State University

The TOC availability was quite useful. If only the full text was online as well. Thank you for making this information accessible online.

Cataloger verifying the link, Central Arizona College.

I want to deal with a difficult family member who has always dominated.

Confirmed that this is a book I want to see. Didn't know until this survey that the LC link would be helpful, I'll go back and try it.

Librarian, Pfeiffer University at Charlotte Library

This TOC covers all points regarding the effective communication for managers which is not only important for theoretical purposes but for practical on also. Student doing MBA.

Engaged in research project for church library in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Needed to consult LC catalogue for feasibility of checking references online. Used as sample my own book.

Librarian, Preston, Gates & Ellis, LLP

[Translated from Spanish] It lets me order this item and helps in cataloging material when the TOC is present.

Good work!

Librarian, South University, Montgomery, Ala.

Could not get brief overviews about catalog [?]. Please allow us to read excerpts.

TOC is useful, but linking to LCs catalog record will be confusing to our students. They won't know where they are and it repeats what they've already seen in our own online catalog. Hartnell Community College Library.

Librarian, Ohio University, Alden Library.

Librarian, Arrendale Library, Piedmont College, Demorest, GA.

More useful than other business library sites, but not useful enough. It did not provide information, just directed me where to go.

It would be even better if the references had the full journal details as I intend doing a doctoral thesis on this topic and need full information.

[It] wasn't the subject area I was looking for.

Helps to see whether the title and contents correspond to my interests; assesses the amount of material likely to be on issues I am concerned with; judge the type of book (in this case it's clearly practitioner handbook, not research monograph). This is the first time I've come across them. They could be very useful in evaluating whether to further to look at a copy of a particular book e.g. for making the kinds of judgments I referred to above.

Librarian, Education, Human Ecology, Psychology, and Social Work Library at the ohio State University. I spend a great part of my day tracking down incorrect or incomplete citations. This service is going to save me hours and hours of work. Thank you very much!

Librarian, Western Iowa Tech Community College

There was only a TOC and no actual paper. I am glad there are such comprehensive libraries of information available on the Internet.

The added benefit of having the linked TOC helped me decide to check out this book. Thanks.

Obtaining the references would have been good - given you are unlikely to lend to Australia!

Should provide a brief summary of the book.

Provides information not yet available on other sites. Type other than courier would be nice [this is set by browser/user]

Wow--excellent idea! The most useful TOCs will probably be for collections of essays, unless each TOC entry is so specific as to provide the user with enough information to determine what each chapter is about.

Librarian. Verifying URL for inclusion in the OPAC. Univ. of Kansas Libraries.

Great. Thank you very much. Librarian/independent library consultant.

RE: last question. Didn't know I could do that... will do it now [try the related links available from the bib record].

TOC was very useful in determining whether this book had information on my specific subject.

I am a corporate librarian with Sulzer Orthopedics in Austin, Texas. My patron wants information about this book and finding the TOC was very helpful.

I was testing the display of the 856 subfield 3 in our local web-based catalogue, so wasn't really interested in the text. Since we already have a bib record copied from LC through DRA in our catalogue, the direction to the LC bib record from the TOC display is a bit misleading to our users. They have already seen the bib record (our copy) or they wouldn't have got to your TOC. We leave the 856 field in these records on the grounds that the TOC link might be useful, but I have no actual evidence that it is.

Librarian, Central Connecticut State University

Librarian, St. Louis University

I was able to determine I needed the book.

I think the index would have been more useful but I was startled to find access to the TOC which could be useful in the future, CRS employee.

[Is it useful?] I don't know yet, could not get it all [full text]. I wanted something that was in the TOC. I could not get the actual document, only the TOC.

TOCs are good.beats having to go to the library to see whether you want the book.

It would be nice to see more than the table of contents.

Librarian, University at Albany. Was surprised that the links are still active.

Notes are not detailed enough (TOC not useful here)

I'll go back and click on the related links (didn't realize they were links)

I work in the South Western Regional Library System. We do bibliographic checking for our member libraries. Having TOC is brilliant. It enables us to check whether 2 books with similar titles are identical. Also, when a chapter heading is given to us as the title of the book, we are able to show which title is required. Many thanks.

Would be more useful if author had more complete TOC. Like the idea, though. It was enough to tell me that I will borrow the book from my local library (Ann Arbor, MI). I am the librarian (non-professional) for the Jewish Genealogical Library. I will borrow the book with an eye to purchasing it for our collection. I anticipate I will buy it. I use LOC on-line catalogue to catalog books in our collection, so that I don't have to develop my own cat. nos.

[Library student] Do you check if OCLC (or other bibliographic service) adds a table of contents in their "notes" area? You would do well to check. LOC needs to look at OCLC. I know it's amazing to you all, but OCLC does a better job. Do I have to point out the narrow/broad searching capability of OCLC?

Cataloger, Wayne State University Libraries, Detroit, MI

Am doing research on the transplantations of specific poems, this makes it much easier to locate those poems.

I like having the table of contents because it gives a clearer picture of the information in the book.

It would be MORE useful to have the TOC in the record itself so that they are searchable in OUR catalog. I often find very useful chapters in books using keyword searching when subject searching bombs out. Librarian, Blue Ridge Community College

I was just looking for the Dewey classification. Librarian, Education America-Dallas Campus

I am a librarian at Southern Cross University, Lismore, Australia. It is excellent to see the chapters within books being indexed. This is very useful to students when looking for information or trying to find references. It seems odd that most journal articles are indexed but not chapters within books. Can users search for chapter headings in your catalogue? I have many requests for this sort of information. Great work!

Expected to see a scanned image of the TOC; chapter headings not very detailed; saw a review of this in Emerald Library and wanted to know more about the book; mainly looked out of curiosity; re next question: I did click on the bib record and realized that I had already seen one in the original database, so clicked on STOP; the link was taking a long time (probably 10 seconds before I clicked STOP). Librarian, Florida State University Libraries; found this link in a record in the Florida A&M University Library catalog in our statewide union database.

Could not get to what I needed. How do I get the information from the books I need?

I was cataloging this item for the Texas State Library.

Provide a link to the author's e-mail from your website.

It looks like a very useful development to have a better idea of the book's contents from the catalogue record,, and I would like to see it more widespread.

Librarian, College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, NY.

Not useful for me, but I will leave the URL in the cataloguing record for our students to use. Cataloger, downloaded record from LC database in ITS MARC.

I find what I am looking for. Very good. I need those files.

Librarian, Wilkinson Public Library, Telluride, CO.

Librarian, Library Universidad Europea de Madrid (Spain).

Librarian, Columbus Metropolitan Library.

Excellent, and I was surprised to find it. Librarian, NACDS library. This was absolutely terrific; I was astonished that it came up.

Increasingly we are spending a lot of time enriching our library's catalogue records with contents and summaries - to make retrieval more specific. THis is also more in line with the way our manuscripts are described, and some of the detailed indexing of other materials, than "bare bones' style of cataloguing. It's an enormous help to have the contents already available electronically. So many cataloguers must spend hours keying in exactly the same information for the same reasons. It took a while to reformat the contents and authors into AACR2 format, but I can live with that. I didn't look at it [the LC bib record] in this case, because the LC record was already available on the database I was using. However, there would be other times when the bib record and related items would be very useful. This is really a great service. AACR2 formatting would help cataloguers, but probably won't be so clear for other users. Maybe us catalogers could modify the way we do things! Auckland War Memorial Museum Library, New Zealand.

Table of contents is no substitute for being able to go back into the stacks.

I need full text.

Very useful in determining whether I should request this. Thank you. You've saved time for me. Research librarian, Supreme Court of the U.S. This is GREAT. Thank you. I hope you can add TOC to more records.

I found this catalog more accessible than the one at my university.

We are considering purchasing this book for our collection. THe publisher's catalog gave only a short summary of the book, so the table of contents were useful in helping us make the determination if the content was relevant for our purchasing decision.

In depth look at contents. Sometimes a brief summary isn't sufficient.

Thank you for including page numbers!! Many sites have TOCs but missing the page numbers, which are critical for reference purposes. Editorial project coordinator for a scientific lab/publisher

Putting links like TOC speed up the searches and are better than letting the search engines rumble through thousands of simila phrases or words, finally coming up with areas that have no significant similarity to the area I am working in. Librarian, Washington Country Coop. Library Service

Thank you. Loved the info.

Working on a book about recent Vietnamese history and the cold war.

Somewhat [helpful], but it would have been more helpful if there were more links to further informationon the subject [user didn't try available links]

Full text articles would be nice...

[TOC] helped me identify the item as the monograph required by lecturer. Library technician, University of Technology, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Very useful. Would have been more useful to me if the TOC had been inthe catalogue record of my local OPAC. Wanted to double check a typo in WorldCat. Found this TOC while searching for the author.

More information.

[Helpful?] Yes, very much. To make it more useful, I hope you would also provide paging for each paper/essay. I hope LC is planning to provide TOC to all books containing essays/papers. Also words int he TOC will be searchable.

I am the author of this book.

[TOC] Helps save time and asseses the usefulness of the book you are looking at for your purposes.

It is very helpful to have the actual sections of the book available to peruse. Librarian, The College of New Jersey.

As a cataloger, I would rather have had it in a 505 field, inthe record. In this form, it is not nearly as useful to my patrons. Librarian, Westminister Theological Seminary.

I need access to this info, not just the TOC.

[Found in] How to Win in the Yellow Pages [an article]

Librarian, Dunagan Library, University of Texas, Permian Basin.

It was veryhelpful. Now, with this information, I'll be able to determine theneed and direct access to the info if I do. I have started a TOC collection for books for further review. Thanks, you guys are all that!

As a collection development librarian, I fina a review of the table of contents a good index to the content level and focus of the publication. The TOC for science and math books is always helpful, especially if the author or publisher is little known. Librarian, Illinois Math and Science Academy.

The data as such was not useful as I already had the book in hand, but it was useful to me as a cataloger to see what the digitized information looks like; this is the first time I have encountered LC's TOC pages. Cataloging librarian, Enoch Pratt Free Library. It helped me determine exactly what this book is about and its level (an introduction to the topic). Librarian, Duke University Library, answering a reference question about the topic of the book.

Sorry, but I am not a "real user." I am looking at ways of adding TOC data to our records. With out Australian dollar at an all time low, it costs us an average $120 to buy a book from overseas. Having previously worked in a library that was adding its own TOC data since 1986, I know TOC is the best way to get the most use out of all the items we buy. I just wish that your TOC data was in your MARC record, so we could get it along with the record when we buy a LC MARC record from our National Library. Keep up the good work!

[Found it] Linked from www.syracuseentrepreneur.com

Librarian, Napoleon (MI) High School Library/Media Center.

I decided not to check out the book.

I have the book in hand already, I was just curious. Good idea, could use a little more formatting in the TOC to make it easier to read. I'd actually prefer to have the TOC right in the catalogue record rather than a web link, so that records could be pulled up from words in the TOC using a full-text search. Librarian, Stanford, Engineering Library.

Librarian, University of Bridgeport, CT.

You are all beating with the best drums! How enriching. Thank you.

Library of Congress