OPAC &
The Bright Future
The Road Show
by John Little
ILS Support Section Head
Duke University Libraries
John.Little@Duke.edu
November, 2007

Only Librarians like to Search,
Everyone else likes to FIND
--Roy Tennant
Our online catalog is not very good at
allowing users to find what they seek.
There are better options
--Michael Norman (Content Mgt, UIUC)

A large and growing number of students
and scholars routinely bypass library catalogs
in favor of other discovery tools
The catalog is in decline...
--Karen Calhoun in a report the the LOC
March, 2006

Libraries are not visible to many users
on the Web
Search Engines Library Web Sites
(Catalog
+ other library web)
2%
89%
From Chip Nilges presentation 2007 about OCLC: Perceptions
of Libraries and Information Resources (2005)

A Sea Change in Thinking, Knowing, ...
Learning, and Teaching -- ECAR Research Study 2007
Information Technologies provide a much wider range of
capabilities for communication
How does use of devices provide insights on cognition and
learning?
How does this sea change inform our designs?
The Academy should rethink how we view the creation,
sharing, and mastery of knowledge
Technology has changed education and made the old OPAC
unusable in the changing educational environment
-- Luba Zakharov

Marshall Breeding's Trends
Separation of front-end from back-end
OPAC not necessarily best library interface
Many efforts already underway to offer alternatives
Too many of the resources that belong in the interface
are out of the ILS scope
Technology cycles faster for front-end than for back-
end processes
Enterprise Interoperability
Interoperate with non-library applications
Course Management Software
Accounting
External Services

Shared Catalogs and Mass Digitization
To the Surrogates and Beyond!
WorldCat
Google Book Search
Google Scholar
Microsoft Live
Amazon.com
Internet Archive and the Open Content Alliance
MetaSearch (\"Wrong solution, right problem!\" -- Calhoun
Report)

Karen Schneider's To Do List
Do this First
Spell Check (10% of errors)
Ranking / Relevance
Faceting
Availability (on the main page)
\"Fluffy Bunnies\" -- Do this too
Book Jackets
Word Clouds
Tagging
Rate/Review
RSS

Chip Nilges' To Do List
1. Undock the search box from the portal
2. Then get a better catalog
Discovery all in one place
digitized collections
special collections
physical collections
e-books
e-journals
and possibly content on the open web (Open
Content Alliance), Google Books Search etc.

Three Basic Services
1. Discover - resources, services, expertise
2. Deliver
3. Share & Collaborate

Features of a Discovery Environment
Discovery
Search system that produces better results for simple
keyword searches (relevance)
Faceted Browsing
Spelling correction - \"Did you mean?\"
Visual Display - book jackets, etc
Quick Search Response, fast Searching
Integrated unified user interface that searches across
digital and non-digital resources simultaneously (e-books,
books, journals, electronic full text, other digital formats
(audio, video). Scope includes surrogates and full-text
objects with meaningful results.

Features of a Discovery Environment
Discovery
Suggestions/Recommendations for further titles instead
of only linking to subject headings (Amazon, LibraryThing)
Quick Results
Flexible ways to view search results, including
relevance, popularity, or availability
FRBR display (modern approach to editions)

Features of a Discovery Environment
Deliver and Share
Easy delivery of digital object or easily facilitate
delivery/location of physical object
Works seamlessly with share systems or citation
holders. e.g. citeulike, del.icio.us, connotea, zotero, Ref
Works, End Note, RSS feeds
Tools to support the finding, gathering, use and reuse of
scholarly content (e.g., RSS feeds, blogs, tagging, user
reviews)
Integrate with other applications, e.g. courseware (CMS),
Amazon, Google Book Search, Worldcat, Metasearch, etc.