Web 2.0 - Continuing impact on Library Catalogues

Slide 1: Web 2.0 - Continuing impact on Library Catalogues “Teaching the Pig to Sing” Dave Pattern, Library Systems Manager University of Huddersfield d.c.pattern@hud.ac.uk Library & Information Show 2008 (24/Apr/2008)

Slide 2: preamble • Presentation available at: – www.slideshare.net/daveyp • Please remix and reuse this presentation! – creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0

Slide 3: table of contents • Does your OPAC “suck”? • Experiences at Huddersfield • Other libraries • Open Source and Web services • OPAC 2.0

Slide 4: does your OPAC “suck”?

Slide 6: 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 

Slide 7: 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

Slide 8: 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)

Slide 9: pig ugly?

Slide 10: “kissy, kissy?”

Slide 12: 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!

Slide 13: 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”

Slide 14: spell checker

Slide 15: keyword suggestions (1) • Failed keyword searches are cross referenced with answers.com to provide new search suggestions

Slide 16: keyword suggestions (2)

Slide 17: keyword suggestions (2) • Automated suggestions can sometimes raise issues – are these suggestions inappropriate?

Slide 18: borrowing suggestions

Slide 19: personalised suggestions

Slide 20: ratings and comments

Slide 21: 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

Slide 22: other editions

Slide 23: email alerts

Slide 24: RSS feeds

Slide 25: RSS feeds

Slide 26: was it worth doing? average feature usage per month (Apr/06-Apr/08) did you mean? also borrowed similar subject other editions 10000 8000 number of clicks 6000 4000 2000 0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Slide 27: 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)

Slide 28: other libraries

Slide 29: Ann Arbor District Library

Slide 31: North Carolina State University

Slide 32: LibraryThing for Libraries

Slide 33: Plymouth State University

Slide 34: Topeka and Shawnee County

Slide 35: University of Warwick

Slide 36: Hennepin County Library

Slide 37: 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)

Slide 38: 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

Slide 39: 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

Slide 40: 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

Slide 41: 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

Slide 42: 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)

Slide 43: 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

Slide 44: the “traditional” vendors • Talis Platform • Bowker “AquaBrowser” • Ex Libris “Primo” • Innovative Interfaces “Encore” • SirsiDynix “???”

Slide 45: play and experimentation

Slide 46: 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”!

Slide 47: admit it, haven’t you wanted to do this in your library…

Slide 48: somewhere over the rainbow?

Slide 49: Huddersfield Public Library

Slide 50: 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?”

Slide 51: keyword search visualisations

Slide 52: eye candy

Slide 53: OPAC 2.0 next generation library catalogues

Slide 54: 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

Slide 55: 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

Slide 56: 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

Slide 57: implementation of features 500 10 number of respondents (total 729) 9 400 8 importance (out of 10) 7 300 6 5 200 4 3 100 2 1 0 0 ts s gs d g n g C s ed nt ed he ea in in PA ce in gg n ow ic fe e t fa ar O m nr ra rr m a S lth u t le e r m bo RS yo er se er co ea s o d us st u r di u s al se u already got getting soon importance

Slide 58: feature importance 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 importance (all) importance (already got) importance (getting soon)

Slide 59: 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 er er co er ea R us us so d us er di st al us

Slide 60: thank you! www.slideshare.net/daveyp d.c.pattern@hud.ac.uk