Fanfic! in the Library: What Can be Learnt from How Readers Search for Fics?

This research seeks to explore the use of fanfiction-specific language (FSL) within the fanfiction community and whether fanfiction readers would find it useful if FSL was incorporated into library catalogues. The aims of the research are to investigate how fanfiction readers learn, use and interact with FSL and to explore if incorporating FSL into public library catalogues would encourage use. A mixed-methods approach was taken – participants were surveyed using a questionnaire and follow-up interviews, which were analysed using descriptive statistics and coding following the constant comparative analysis process. The major findings of the study are that fanfiction readers largely do understand and use FSL when searching for fanfiction, and that readers learn FSL through three different methods: figuring it out, looking it up, and asking the community. It was also found that fanfiction readers can be frustrated when searching library catalogues as they do not have the same levels of detailed searching as fanfiction websites. Participants generally did not feel that just incorporating FSL into library catalogues would be useful – instead, the style of search system used by fanfiction websites could be utilised. The main recommendation from this study is that library catalogues should take a more user-centric approach.