Från ord till handling En studie i ordboksanvändning på nätet

Resumé

The article presents the results of a log file analysis of the searches in Lexin Svenska ord, a
free Swedish monolingual Internet dictionary. It focuses on the non-successful searches,
called not-founds. The results show, firstly, that a considerable amount of the not-founds
are correctly spelled Swedish words, but they are not included in the lemma selection of
the dictionary. Users also often search for two (or more) word expressions. Secondly, the
dictionary’s programmed response in the case of not-founds gives far too many suggestions
for it to be user-friendly; sometimes the user is given as many as forty suggestions
on words that he or she could have been searching for. Thirdly, users tend to repeat their
searches in order to obtain a successful search, e.g. by trying another spelling. It is shown
that log files can be a helpful tool in the lexicographers’ work improving electronic as well
as paperback dictionaries.