Next Generation Catalogs: What Do Users Think? Conclusions from the beluga Project Anne Christensen State and University Library Hamburg ELAG 2009 – New Tools of the Trade Bratislava, April 22, 2009

The next generation catalog… - aka Catalog 2.0, 0PAC 2.0, (social) discovery tool -

… allows browsing

… is mashed up

… features user-generated metadata & content

… offers user experience

… makes metadata re-usable – for machines and humans

What are librarians hoping for?

Finally! Libraries stand a chance against Google!

Cool! Better use out of our metadata!

Wow! The catalog can evolve into one of these funky social networks!

Next Generation Catalogs Hall of Fame Make Buy

Catalog 2.0 in Hamburg State and University Library Hamburg + 7 other libraries from the Hamburg area November 2007 – October 2010 348.000 € grant from E-Learning Consortium Hamburg

Search interface indexed with Solr, normalization format: Dublin Core Google-like simplicity Visualization of catalog content by format

Results list Relevance ranking as default Facetted Browsing

Full view Similar titles Availability information from ILS Export to other platforms and in different formats Mashups

Imported material in course management system Formatted citation beluga-Link Availability information

So, what do users think?

„ What I really like is that you actually involve people who are going to suffer from the system.“

Methods of user-centered design Focus groups Anthropological studies Usability Tests

Results from focus groups and usability tests

Create lists Share lists „ My lists are pretty intimate!“   „ I don‘t want to do all the work for people.“

Mashup with Amazon „ Need to make up my own mind“  „ What really matters: The tables of content“

User-generated content „ Would only do this on course website“ 

 Opinions of fellow students and professors matter.

But: The social stuff happens elsewhere.

Library catalogs as aggregators?

They don‘t trust us to be like Google. „ Where is the advanced search button?“

„ How do I know if I picked the right term“ People have high expections regarding the „search experience“ „ Who defines how the lists are sorted?“

Relevance Ranking Spell checking Controlled vocabulary   

Faculty and students seek serendipity. „ I love finding stuff I wasn‘t looking for in the first place“

Facetted browsing Virtual shelf browsing New titles Circulation statistics    

Students want to be given starting points for their subjects. „ Why isn‘t there some sort of pre-selected bibliography?“

Library catalogs as knowledge hubs. (Or even dating services)

Visualizations provide a better „User Experience“

Research from other projects shows similar results:

Personalization Search experience Facetted Browsing Visualizations Export functionalities User-generated content Sharing content with strangers       

Personalization

Search experience

Facetted Browsing

Visualizations

Export functionalities

User-generated content

Sharing content with strangers

Anyway: Rethinking the catalog is worth the effort.

NGC-Projects in Europe

Thank you! Anne Christensen E: [email_address] W: http://beluga.sub.uni-hamburg.de Links: http://delicious.com/christensen/elag09

Anne Christensen

E: [email_address]

W: http://beluga.sub.uni-hamburg.de

Links: http://delicious.com/christensen/elag09