Edinburgh Dave Pattern

OPAC 2.0 supporting library users Dave Pattern, Library Systems Manager University of Huddersfield [email_address]

preamble

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contents

Does your OPAC “suck”?

2007 OPAC survey

Experiences at Huddersfield

Other libraries

Open Source and commercial products

Web services

OPAC 2.0

does your OPAC “suck”?

2007 OPAC survey

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



2007 OPAC survey

One criticism of OPACs is that they rarely have cutting edge 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

the OPAC as a “pig”

“After all, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still very much a pig.” (Roy Tennant discussing the OPAC, Library Journal , 2005)

“Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.” (attrib. Robert Heinlein, author)

pig ugly?

“kissy, kissy?”

experiences at Huddersfield

background

General unhappiness with vendor product

“In-house” enhancements to the existing OPAC…

user suggestions from surveys

“ 2.0” inspired features

borrowing good ideas 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!

spell checker

All OPAC keyword searches were monitored over a six month period

Approx 23% of searches gave zero results

74 people entered “renew” as a keyword(!)

Users expect suggestions and prompts, not “dead end” pages

spell checker

keyword suggestions (1)

Failed keyword searches are cross referenced with answers.com to provide new search suggestions

keyword suggestions (2)

keyword cloud

borrowing suggestions

personalised suggestions

ratings and comments

other editions

Uses web services provided by OCLC and LibraryThing to locate other editions and related works within local holdings

www.oclc.org/research/projects/xisbn/

www.librarything.com/api

other editions

email alerts

RSS feeds

Google Book Search

shelf browser

was it worth doing?

421 active email alerts

167 active RSS feeds

1,102 ratings

72 comments

personalised suggestions

116 clicks per month (average)

combined keyword suggestions

753 clicks per month (average)

other libraries

Ann Arbor District Library

Darien Public Library

North Carolina State University

LibraryThing for Libraries

Plymouth State University

Topeka and Shawnee County

University of Warwick

Hennepin County Library

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)

doing it yourself

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”

Monitor usage

if usage is poor, rethink it or get rid of it

Open Source OPACs

Scriblio

Plymouth State University

uses WordPress blog software

VuFind

Falvey Memorial Library, Villanova University

Uses PHP & MySQL

LibraryFind

Oregon State University Libraries

uses Ruby on Rails

Open Source OPACs

fac-back-opac

Laurentian University Library

uses Lucene & Solr

Project Blacklight

University of Virginia Libraries

uses Lucene & Solr

The Social OPAC

Darien Library (John Blyberg)

Open Source OPACs

Open Source Library Management Systems

Koha

Evergreen

VuFind

fac-back-opac

the traditional vendors

Talis Platform

Ex Libris “Primo”

Innovative Interfaces “Encore”

SirsiDynix “Enterprise”

Bowker “ AquaBrowser ” (UK)

DS “ DSArena ”

web services

web services & APIs

Talis Platform

LibraryThing

thingISBN, thingTitle, thingLang, data feeds

OCLC WorldCat Grid Services

Amazon Web Services

recently rebranded as “Amazon Associates Web Service” with new conditions of use

Google Book Search API

Amazon Associates Web Service

Cover scans, reviews, recommendations, sales commission, etc

Already used by many libraries

However, recent change to conditions of use (March 2008) may preclude libraries:

5.1.3. You are not permitted to use Amazon Associates Web Service with any Application or for any use that does not have, as its principal purpose, driving traffic to the Amazon Website and driving sales of products and services on the Amazon Website.