Abstract
The library provides its services to satisfy the user's approach. Naturally, the development of library services may determine by considering the satisfaction of users. It traces users' perceptions regarding subject access highlighting problems in the retrieval of Bengali documents by subject. This study has designed to assess users' attitudes towards the retrievals of Bengali documents in OPAC through subject headings. For a collection of data, a representative sample has drawn from a large and heterogeneous population consisting of users in university libraries of West Bengal using a stratified sampling technique. Subsequently, under each of the universities, users' community was stratified into students, research scholars, and faculty members. Under each stratum, the sample selected on a random basis. The users met personally to collect relevant data, while they came to the library and went on to search OPAC. A structured schedule, prepared for the purpose, was presented before library users and consequently, interviews and interpretations recorded systematically. In this manner, several factors have identified concerning subject searching and retrieval performance for Bengali documents. This study explores the access using subject headings in multilingual information retrieval systems. Moreover, the suitability of subject headings for retrieval of Bengali resources has ascertained from the users' point of view. The findings demand standard principles and rules for the construction of Bengali subject headings to maintain uniformity and consistency.