Web 2.0 - Continuing impact on Library Catalogues

Web 2.0 - Continuing impact on Library Catalogues “Teaching the Pig to Sing” Dave Pattern, Library Systems Manager University of Huddersfield [email_address]

preamble
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table of contents
Does your OPAC “suck”?
Experiences at Huddersfield
Other libraries
Open Source and 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
Definitely not OPAC 2.0
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 that tell you to “check your spelling”

spell checker

keyword suggestions (1)
Failed keyword searches are cross referenced with answers.com to provide new search suggestions

Automated suggestions can sometimes raise issues – are these suggestions inappropriate?

borrowing suggestions

personalised suggestions

ratings and comments

other editions
Uses FRBR-like 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

was it worth doing?

was it worth doing?
376 active email alerts
113 active RSS feeds
846 ratings
53 comments
personalised suggestions
116 clicks per month (average)
combined keyword suggestions
753 clicks per month (average)

other libraries

Ann Arbor District 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
Open Source ILS
Koha
Evergreen

web services & APIs
Talis Platform
LibraryThing
thingISBN, thingTitle, thingLang, data feeds
OCLC WorldCat Grid Services
Amazon Web Services
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 (19/Mar/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.
( AWS Customer Agreement )

Google Book Search API
Launched 13/Mar/2008
Typically client-side implementation (rather than server-side)
Link to GBS content:
via ISBN, LCCNs, and OCLC numbers
front cover thumbnails
preview pages

the “traditional” vendors
Talis Platform
Bowker “AquaBrowser”
Ex Libris “Primo”
Innovative Interfaces “Encore”
SirsiDynix “???”

play and experimentation

it’s okay to play!
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
attrib: George Bernard Shaw
2007 Library & Information Show Workshop on Library 2.0
Q: I don’t get paid to play, I get paid to work
A: So, don’t call it “play”, call it “professional development”!

admit it, haven’t you wanted to do this in your library…

somewhere over the rainbow?

Huddersfield Public Library

never judge a book by it’s cover
“ I borrowed a book 3 years ago that had an orange cover… can I borrow it again?”

keyword search visualisations

eye candy

OPAC 2.0 next generation library catalogues

OPAC 2.0
Shopping list of features:
spell checking (“did you mean?”)
search all library resources (inc. e-resources)
relevancy ranking, search refining, and facets
manual recommendations (“best bets”)
automated suggestions (based on both global and user-specific data)
user participation (“read-write OPAC”)
foster communities of interest

OPAC 2.0
Shopping list of features (cont):
improve serendipity
expose hidden links between items
APIs and Web Services to expose data
promote unintended uses
user personalisation
embed external data (e.g. Wikipedia, LibraryThing)
RSS feeds and OpenSearch

2007 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 6.0
personalised suggestions (e.g. like Amazon) 5.9
user added ratings for items 5.7

implementation of features

feature importance

importance – UK respondents

thank you! www.slideshare.net/daveyp [email_address]

Web 2.0 - Continuing impact on Library Catalogues

by daveyp on Apr 23, 2008

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Web 2.0 - Continuing impact on Library Catalogues — Presentation Transcript