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Revitalizing the Library OPAC

Revitalizing the Library OPAC. Challenges Faced by Academic Librari ans. Jia Mi Cathy Weng The College of New Jersey ALDP Conference, April 11, 2007. Presenter. Cathy Weng Head of Cataloging The College of New Jersey U.S.A. Information Seeking Landscape. Changes in technology

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Revitalizing the Library OPAC

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  1. Revitalizing the Library OPAC Challenges Faced by Academic Librarians Jia Mi Cathy Weng The College of New Jersey ALDP Conference, April 11, 2007

  2. Presenter Cathy Weng Head of Cataloging The College of New Jersey U.S.A.

  3. Information Seeking Landscape • Changes in technology • Emergency of the Internet, WWW applications • Academic library users • Information-seeking behavior • Academic libraries • Losing ground to online search engines • Rich resources not utilized

  4. Changes in User Behavior • Trends of information consumers’ needs • Self-service (moving to self-sufficiency) • Satisfaction • Seamlessness (*) • Caused by the emergence of search engines * De Rosa, Dempsey and Wilson, OCLC environmental scan, 2003

  5. Librarian’s perceptions • Users are forgetful • Users are ignorant • Users are impatient Prevented from recognizing changes in user behavior and ineffective OPAC design.

  6. The OPAC Re-examined • Good to find known items (successful only when structured metadata is retrieved) • Data-centered and card-catalog retrieval mechanism • Lack of features provided by search engines • Bibliographic display converted from card catalog • Designed for and used fluently by librarians • Not user-friendly

  7. The OPAC Study Two aspects: • Public interface • Bibliographic display

  8. Public Interface Study • 123 ARL libraries’ OPACs were examined • Five Major Integrated Library Systems (ILS): ALEPH, Horizon, Millennium, Unicorn and Voyager. • Study focused on: • Default search options • Search ability --Keyword search functionality • Relevance ranking • Search results display

  9. Default Search Options • Eighty-one libraries (66%) have “keyword” as the default. • Thirty-six libraries (29%) have “title” as the default • Six libraries (5%) provide options for library users to choose

  10. Keyword Search as the Default

  11. Default Search Option set to “Title”

  12. List of Search Keys for Users to Select

  13. Search Ability – True keyword Search • The power of implicit “AND” feature • Not all libraries implemented the “automatic AND” keyword search option • Various phrase-search features • Explicit or implicit • Affects the number of search results and relevancy • Confusing search keys and help screens

  14. Keyword “Phrase Only” Search U. Of Washington, 3/31/07

  15. Modular Algorithms for Keyword Retrieval Michigan State U., 3/31/07

  16. Difference of Using Keyword Search Algorithms U. Of Washington, 3/31/07 Michigan State U., 3/31/07

  17. Temple Univ., 3/31/07 Syracuse Univ.; 3/31/07

  18. Keyword Search Keys Used by Voyager Libraries

  19. Relevance Ranking in Search Results • Most useful when keyword search is performed • Three ILS vendors offer relevance ranking search results functionality • Some libraries either provide sorting options or do not use it. • Some libraries sort search results by date, title or author • Some libraries set “system sort” as the default sorting option

  20. OPAC Sorting Options

  21. Search Results Display • Great disparities in OPAC quality • Some issues • Search terms and search boxes were not retained on the results page • Post-search limit functions were not always readily available • Item statuses were not available on the search results page • Searched keywords not highlighted

  22. Bibliographic Display Study • Fifteen libraries’ OPACs were examined • Eight records were used • Findings are based on three criteria: • The accuracy and clarity of display labels • The order of bibliographic elements display • The utilization of bibliographic data

  23. Display Labels • Issues • MARC mapping not intuitive • Only suitable for certain types of materials • Unclear labels • Inaccurate labels • Level of effort devoted to the labels’ clarity and accuracy

  24. Some Examples • Use one label to represent various types of names • Use library jargons (e.g., LC, MESH subject headings, uniform title) • Unclear labels to describe information about publication span • Series statements

  25. Use “Author” to represent personal names, corporate names, and meeting names * SUNY Buffalo, access 3/25/07

  26. Use “Conference” to represent conference name * University of Ill, access 3/25/07

  27. Use library jargons (e.g., LC, MESH subject headings, uniform title) * Univ. of Ill., accessed 3/25/07

  28. Unclear Labels (label for publication span) Princeton Univ. & Univ. of Minnesota, accessed 3/25/07

  29. Unclear Labels (label for publication span) Northwestern Univ. & Vanderbilt Univ., accessed 3/25/07

  30. Series Statement Northwestern Univ. & Vanderbilt Univ., accessed 3/25/07

  31. Series Statement Univ. of Minnesota & Univ. of Ill., accessed, 3/25/07

  32. Utilization of bibliographic data • Completeness and suitability in display • Data should not be displayed but displayed • Data should be displayed but not displayed • Etc…. • Repurposing bibliographic data to create added-value features

  33. Data should not be displayed Univ. of Washington, & Suny Buffalo, accessed 3/25/07

  34. Repurposing Bibliographic Data • Making use of data creatively (outside- the-box thinking) • Amazon’s successful story (*) * Lorcan Demsey’s blog “Making data work - Web 2.0 and catalogs”, Oct. 4, 2005

  35. NCSU’s Endeca Catalog • Using facets to facilitate retrieval process • Eight facets are extracted from existing MARC records

  36. NCSU’s Endeca Facets extracted from MARC records

  37. NCSU’s Endeca Facets extracted from MARC records

  38. Thoughts from the Study Findings • System limitations • Libraries are not fully exploiting the functionality already made available by ILSs • The unsuitability of MARC standards to online bibliographic display

  39. Vision “To create a system that didn’t need to be taught.” (*) “Trusting users as co-developers .” (**) Maximize and creatively utilize system’s functionality and metadata. Restructure metadata to support modular display. * Tennant, Roy, “Lipstick on a pig,” Library Journal, 2005. ** O’Reilly, Tim, “Wat is Web 2.0?”, 2005.

  40. Thank You! Jmi@tcnj.edu weng@tcnj.edu

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