Users Needs For Subject Access
One important factor to consider in the amount and type of subject access provided is in the nature of the users' queries. In the last ten to fifteen years research has proven that library users "do not always ask for assistance from librarians when seeking library materials" (DeZelar-Tiedman 1996, 204). Rather, since the technological revolution, users generally search for items independently using the OPACs available. This is significant because research shows that library users do not often seek fiction through known-item author or title searches.
A frequently cited study indicated that when searching online catalogs, users search by subject 73% of the time (DeZelar-Tiedman 205). Because of the lack of an ideal standard for subject access to fiction via online catalogs, we can only assume that many searches are unsuccessful if patrons are searching for fiction in this manner (DeZelar-Tiedman 205). Thus, in the recent age of online catalog searching, which has resulted in more independent searching, better subject access to fiction is essential. Library users are probably not finding the fiction material they require for either recreational or academic purposes.
Despite this similar trend towards the usage of OPACs and subject searching that transcends all "types" of libraries; there is a difference in user needs in public and academic libraries. In public libraries, users are looking for works of fiction to meet their recreational needs. They may come in looking for a book that is similar to something they read before. In this sense, subject access can work as a type of reader's advisory service. This lack of successful subject access to imaginative literature has long been recognized in public libraries, "For decades, the public librarians have pointed out that their adult users are much more likely to be looking for a certain kind of novel or a novel on a certain subject, such as mystery or gothic novel, than to be looking for a particular title or author" (Ranta 7).
In contrast, in the academic environment, students and scholars use fiction as a text to be analyzed, in the same way that a nonfiction text would be analyzed; therefore, subject access is just as needed for fiction as nonfiction. To quote Judith A. Ranta, in an academic library, "the extent of the need for subject access must override the difficulties, especially in light of the changes in literary scholarship and the interdisciplinary trend in other fields." (Hayes 451) The information needs of the user must be addressed when assigning subject headings.