Opening What's Closed: Using Open Source Tools to Tear Down [Vendor] Silos

Opening What's Closed:Using Open Source Tools to Tear Down [Vendor] Silos
Ken Varnumvarnum@umich.edu
WiLSWorld21 July 2010

Outline
Challenges
Challenge Answered: Design
Challenge Answered: Technology
How We Break Down Silos
Demonstration
Q&A

The challenges we faced

Our Problem

Our Problem
Catalog
Federated Search
Research Guides x 3
300+ database providers
Thousands of online journals
Dozens of libraries
Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Information Not Location
Web Team charge: allow the Dean to find stuff more easily
A vehicle for a single identity – the MLibrary brand
Provide a unified user experience
Platonic Ideal – Eliminate Silos

Design Phase 1

Phase I: The Band-Aid
Force the brand onto the site
Provide consistent navigation
Identify duplicated content
Practice the idea of thinking of ourselves as one
Reduced, but didn’t eliminate, heterogeneity of interface

Data Gathering
Broad user survey
One question survey
Focus groups
Advisory groups

Users Told Us
Wanted to know what was important
Did not want to know where to start: information, not location
Single interface & design would reduce confusion
No lists of links (except faculty wanted a list of ejournals)

Translation
Searching and browsing are the most frequently sought functions: Find Bar
Building a single system – single visual, consistent services
Move to a content management system
Eliminate silos – our own and vendor’s

Design Phase 2

Visual Priorities
Provide a ubiquitous, persistent FIND function
Establish clear visual hierarchy
Make us look hip, clean, contemporary
Show off our treasures (they’re never seen!)
Tell our news
Reveal things that aren’t known about us

Visual Elements
Soft colors don’t compete with primary function
Regular rhythms help users anticipate – use a grid
Design philosophy – keep it simple
If the design is invisible, the design succeeds

Today’s Gateway

INTEGRATION

Putting the User First
Review what users told us:
Wanted librarians to tell them what was important
Wanted easy starting poit
Wanted unified design
No lists of links*
Built site around search and browse
Used technology to beat silos into access
* Except faculty. They LOVE their A-Z online journals list

Development Principles
We  open source software
Preference for building over buying
Trend toward customization of generic tool
We have in-house capability to customize
Drupal, VuFind, Solr
But use more than open source
Still live in a vendor-driven environment
Metalib, EZProxy, SFX, Aleph ILS

Ex Libris
Catalog (Aleph)
Federated Search (Metalib)
Link Resolver (SFX)
Largely closed systems

VuFind
Open Source OPAC
Based on Solr
Largely open

LibGuides
Moved subject content out of web site
Better presentation for our users without building a tool
Still wanted to include in site search
Open data, not open application

DSpace
Institutional Repository
Metadata
Somewhat open

Drupal
Heart of the site
Biggest strength: you can make it do anything
Biggest weakness: you can make it do anything
Enables very complex data flows
Largely open

Apache Solr
Search (mostly) happens here
We index lots of data from lots of sources
But we aren’t building an index of everything
VuFind
DSpace (“Deep Blue”)

Obligatory Data Flow Vision Test

demonstration

User testing and site revisions

The road to Hell is paved with benign neglect.
-- Me

A Year in Review
The punch list morphed into remodeling and redesign needs
Reacting to feedback
Conducting usability work

Post Redesign: It Never Ends
Integrating other services & applications
Article Discovery is the 3rd leg of the stool (web and catalog done)
Mobile interfaces
New User Experience Department just formed

Gateway Page Layout
Participatory Design
Volunteers get print-out of gateway page
Circle things they like
X-out things they don’t like
Use post-its to add things that they want
Learned interesting things about what students & librarians value
Faculty study underway this term

Suzanne Chapman, suzchap@umich.edu

Q&A
Ken Varnum
Web Systems Manager
University of Michigan Library
varnum@umich.edu
@varnum
lib.umich.edu/users/varnum

Opening What's Closed: Using Open Source Tools to Tear Down [Vendor] Silos

by Ken Varnum on Jul 21, 2010

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Opening What’s Closed: Using Open Source Tools to Tear Down [Vendor] Silos — Presentation Transcript