Connecting users to Collections
Collection Development/Resource Sharing Conference
March 26, 2009
Jean Phillips
Florida Center for Library Automation
jeanp@ufl.edu

Connecting users to Collections
• There is no one place/one tool/one starting
point/one type of user
• The tool that best represents what we have
available to our users is the catalog
• How are we improving the catalog?
• Are they using it?

Are they using the catalog?
• Mango averages
over 1 million
searches a month
• Statistics from
FY2007/2008

How are we improving the catalog?
• Stealth OPACs
• Better User Interfaces
• Wider Discovery
• More Interactive
• Clearer Delivery Options

“Stealth Opacs”
• Coined by David Pattern in his blog “Self-plagiarism is style”
• Most important feature of nextgen catalog in 2007 survey

Can you find the catalog?

How about now?

Now?

Here?

Here?
http://fgcu.libguides.com/accounting_and_tax

Recognize the device?…

In the palm of your hand

Mango on the IPhone

This one is a little harder…

Example using one of the tools
• Get an email about interesting lecture on the
TED website, topic is organization structures

Better User Interfaces
• More like other Web interfaces
• Less instruction required for basic use
• More access points, ways to search
• Progressive improvement of look and feel

First generation online interface

First generation web interface

Vendor designed web interface

NextGen Catalog at NCSU

Mango is born
• Mango is FCLA created web application that
uses the Endeca search engine and repository
• Began work in October 2007
• Went live in August 2008
• Still maintaining Aleph OPACs
• 9.1 million bibliographic records
• Aleph records from 11 SULs merged into one
record

University of West Florida Catalog

Union Catalog in Mango

Better User Interfaces
• David Pattern’s Top 5 Priorities
– Stealth OPAC
– Relevance ranking
– Faceted searching
• Special collections facets
• New Title facet
– RSS
– Did you mean
• Other features important to SULs
– Export/save options
– Guided Navigation
– Text to mobiles
– Permalinks

Aleph keyword search

Mango keyword search

Mango interactive
• Live connection to LMS info. in Aleph
– Availability
– Patron accounts/Renewals
– Requests
• Book covers and more from Google books
• Citation formats from WorldCat: “Cite this”
• Export of citations to Refworks
• Text of title and call no. to cell phones
• Linking out to library location maps: “floor map”

Mango
State University Libraries of Florida

Mango
State University Libraries of Florida

Wider discovery: what’s in your
catalog?
• Aleph catalog records: 16 million bibliographic
records merged into 8 million
• Center for Research Libraries
• Digital collections: DLU01/Digitool

Wider discovery: what could be added?
• UF Digital Collections
• Wolfsonian Museum
• IFAS EDIS publications
• E-Gov Docs
• Open Access Digitized books (Mbooks or all
Hathi Trust)
• Non-MARC resources

Delivery: How do our users \"get it”?
• Open URLs, link resolvers (sfx and Serials solutions)

Delivery: electronic
• URLs in the metadata, for example:
– Digital objects
• Images
• Full text
• Video/audio
– Federal Government documents
– Ejournals
– Ebooks

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/clay_shir
ky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.htm

Delivery:
digital

Delivery: map
• Go to the shelves (location mapping)

Delivery: map

Delivery: requests

Delivery: ILL
InterLibrary loan requests

Delivery: Future
• Uborrow
– Unmediated borrowing
– 1st Phase returnables within SULs
– Aleph ILL or ILLiad
– later phases
• expand to CCLA colleges and beyond
• articles

Continuous improvement
• SUL OPAC subcommittee development list
• Articles – in process
• Ideas to be prioritized
– Social tagging
– Recommender
– Reviews
– Integrated course reserves
– Subject oriented interfaces
– More data sources
– Cross references from Authority records

Future of interfaces?
• Sixth sense project at MIT
– “Wearable gestural interface”
– http://www.pranavmistry.com/project
s/sixthsense/#PICTURES
– Ultimate mobile device

Future of interfaces?