Internet Librarian 2007 - A102 The Impact of 2.0

Slide 1: The Impact of 2.0 lipstick, cowbells and serendipity in the OPAC Dave Pattern, Library Systems Manager University of Huddersfield d.c.pattern@hud.ac.uk October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 1

Slide 2: Contents • “OPAC suckitude” • Some findings from the OPAC Survey • Our experiences at Huddersfield • More from the OPAC Survey Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 2

Slide 3: Does Your OPAC “Suck”? October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 3

Slide 4: October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 4

Slide 6: Quick OPAC Survey (2007) • On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 is extremely unhappy and 10 is extremely happy), how happy are you with your OPAC? 5.1  October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 6

Slide 7: Quick OPAC Survey (2007) • One criticism of OPACs is that they rarely have cutting edge features (or perhaps even basic features) that our users expect from a modern web site. On a scale of 1 to 10, how well do you think your OPAC meets the needs and expectations of your users? 4.5 October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 7

Slide 8: Quick OPAC Survey (2007) • On a scale of 1 to 10, how easy do you think one of your average users finds your OPAC is to use? 4.6 • On a scale of 1 to 10, how important do you think it is that an OPAC is easy & intuitive to use? 9.2 October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 8

Slide 9: The Huddersfield Experience • Not really “OPAC 2.0” (?) • Enhancements to the vendor OPAC – user suggestions from student/staff surveys – “2.0” inspired features – good ideas “borrowed” from other web sites – new features launched with no/low publicity – “perpetual beta” • Required staff buy-in and a willingness to experiment and take risks October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 9

Slide 10: Spell Checker • We monitored keyword searches over a six month period and discovered 23%* of searches gave zero results – most OPACs present the user with a dead end page (“...where do I go now?”) – a good search engine should still give the user options on a failed search (“did you mean?”) (* 2 years on, it’s still around 20%) October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 10

Slide 11: Spell Checker October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 11

Slide 12: Spell Checker • Spell checker based on a common word dictionary or your own holdings? – ...the latter might highlight your cataloguing errors1! October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 12

Slide 13: Serendipity Keyword Suggestions • failed keyword searches are cross referenced with www.answers.com to provide new search suggestions October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 13

Slide 14: Serendipity Keyword Suggestions October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 14

Slide 15: Borrowing Suggestions • We had details of over 2,000,000 CKOs spanning 10 years stored in the library management system and gathering virtual dust • Web 2.0 – “Data is the Next Intel Inside1” • Historic circulation data can be mined2 to uncover the hidden trends and links between potentially disparate library items October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 15

Slide 16: Borrowing Suggestions October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 16

Slide 17: Other Editions • Uses FRBR-y web services provided by OCLC and LibraryThing to locate other editions and related works within local holdings – OCLC’s xISBN1 – LibraryThing’s thingISBN2 October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 17

Slide 18: Other Editions October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 18

Slide 19: Ratings and Comments October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 19

Slide 26: Problems ... Challenges! • There was no formal process for discussing & agreeing new OPAC features – so we organised a web/library 2.0 afternoon for staff • Some initial (healthy) scepticism from staff – would users think borrowing suggestions were formal recommendations from the library? – aren’t borrowing suggestions just for selling books? – how relevant will the suggestions be? • Would sudden changes confuse users? October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 26

Slide 27: Solutions? • Encourage suggestions from staff • Include users in decision making process • Encourage play and experimentation • Don’t be afraid to make mistakes! • Look widely for ideas • “Build crappy prototypes fast”1 • Monitor usage – if usage is poor then remove it October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 27

Slide 28: “If you build it, will they come?” October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 28

Slide 29: Increase in Usage \"Did You Mean\" - 2006/07 Compared 2500 2000 number of clicks 1500 1000 500 0 May June July October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 29 2006 2007

Slide 30: Increase in Usage \"People Who Borrowed This...\" - 2006/07 Compared 3500 3000 2500 number of clicks 2000 1500 1000 500 0 May June July October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 30 2006 2007

Slide 31: Lipstick on the Pig “We need to focus more energy on important, systemic changes rather than cosmetic ones. If your system is more difficult to search and less effective than Amazon.com, then you have work to do. After all, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still very much a pig.” (Roy Tennant, Library Journal, 2005) October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 31

Slide 32: Quick OPAC Survey – Features • Please rate how important you feel the following features are to your users in a modern OPAC. – embedding the OPAC in external sites (e.g. portals) 8.7 – “did you mean” spelling suggestions 8.6 – enriched content (book covers, ToCs, etc) 8.4 – RSS feeds (e.g. new books, searches, etc) 7.8 – facetted browsing (e.g. like NCSU Library) 7.4 – “people who borrowed this” suggestions 6.5 – user tagging of items (i.e. folksonomy) 6.1 – user added comments and reviews 6.1 – personalised suggestions (e.g. like Amazon) 6.0 – user added ratings for items 5.7 October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 32

Slide 33: Importance (getting soon) Feature Importance 10 10 9.1 8.9 8.8 8.8 8.7 importance (out of 10) 9 9 8.4 8.0 8.7 8.6 7.8 8.4 8 8 7.4 7.8 7.0 7.4 7 7 6.5 6 6 6.1 6.1 6.0 5.7 5 5 4 4 s d g s n gs C g ed ts et ed he in in ea PA en tin w c gg rn fe ric fa m O ro m ra a ta en S r lth u m le bo RS yo er er co ea er us us so d us st er di al us October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 33 importance (all) importance (already got) importance (getting soon)

Slide 34: Importance – UK respondents UK respondents non-UK respondents 10 10 8.8 8.7 9 9 8.6 7.9 importance (out of 10) 8.6 7.7 8 8 8.1 7.8 6.7 7 7 7.2 6.2 6.2 6.0 5.9 6.5 6 6 5.9 5.8 5.7 5.4 5 5 5.3 4 4 g n ng C ts ed ed gs ds s ea in et PA en ni w tin e h gg c m fe ric ro ar m fa O ra ta m u r le en SS bo lth yo October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 34 er er co er ea R us us so d us er di st al us

Slide 35: Technology Adoption - Now October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 35

Slide 36: Technology Adoption – Q4 07? October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 36

Slide 37: Thank you! Any quick questions? http://www.slideshare.net/daveyp d.c.pattern@hud.ac.uk October 2007 Internet Librarian International 2007 37

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