ALCTS President’s Program: Breaking Down the Silos: Planning for Discovery in Library 2.0 - an ALCTS Midwinter Symposium |
Posted: 24 Jan 2009 12:43 PM PST
David Lee King is Digital Branch & Services Manager at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library http://www.tscpl.org/
Marshall Breeding - title of his presentation: Next Generation Library Interfaces: Overview of concepts and a brief tour of commercial and open source products started with OCLC Perceptions stat - where do you start an info search?
- 89% search engines… library catalogs, 2%
- usage of library websites is going down, everything else is going up … hmm…
- aside - that makes a good case for sticking library content on blogs… users will find you that way
Crowded landscape of info providers on the web - google, amazon, us, etc…
- Nobody has to go to a bibliographic instruction class to use Amazon… Nice.
- Amazon is so easy to use - Marshall accidentally bought a book during a presentation, it’s so easy
Demand for compelling library interfaces:
- urgent need for libraries to offer interfaces their users will like to use
- move into the current millenium
- search in line with how the current web works
Inadequacy of ILS OPACs:
- OPAC modules … failing to meet customer needs - it’s not really built for customers
- Change is Underway! Lots of movement to break out of the current mold of library catalogs
- Marshall hopes the back end will be redesigned, too, to be more modern
Next-Generation Interfaces:
- redefinition of the library catalog - the word “catalog” is not a good one
- more elegant presentation (think amazon)
- more comprehensive info discovery environments
- no longer enough to provide a catalog limited to print resources
- digital resources cannot be an afterthought
- systems designed for e-content only are also problematic forcing users to use different interfaces depending on types of content becoming less tenable federated search currently operates as a plug-in component of next-gen interfaces
web 2.0 flavorings:
- strategic infrastructure + web 2.0
- a more social and collaborative approach web tools and tech that foster collaboration integrated blogs, wiki, user reviews, etc.
- avoid 2.0 info silos - don’t have separate blogs, wikis, etc - make sure it’s integrated
2.0 supporting tech:
- web services, xml apis, ajax, relevancy-based search engines, social networking tools and concepts
scope of the next gen library interface:
- attempt to collapse silos or draw appropriately from each silo
- unified user experience
- single point of entry into everything
- print + electronic
- local + remote
- locally created content
Functions and features:
- Interface features/user experience:
- simple point of entry - optional advanced search
- relevancy ranked results
- facets for narrowing and navigation
- query enhancement - spell check, etc
suggested related results / recommendation service
- enriched visual and textual content
- single sign-on
Relevancy Ranking:
- Endeca, Lucene do a good job
- web users expect this! - the good stuff should be listed first
- users tend not to delve deep into a result list
- good relevancy requires a sophisticated approach
new paradigm for search and navigation:
- users drill down through the result set and faceted browsing
- faceted search - gives users clues about eh the number of hits, etc - it’s more like an online store’s faceted/guided navigation
- more visual, has navigational bread crumbs
- talking about boolean - walmart doesn’t teach their customers to do fancy boolean search to get to their products… we shouldn’t do this either!
- Amazon doesn’t say “no results found.” Did you Mean and other features instead validated spell check have More Like This recommendation service
- goal - make the query and the response to it better than the query provided
appropriate organizational structures:
- LCSH vs FAST (faceted application of subject terminology)
- full marc vs dublin core or MODS, or unstructured data discipline-specific thesauri or ontologies
“tags”
- enriched content - book jacket, summaries, etc
- personalization/single sign on
deep search:
- entering post-metadata search era
- web searches full text. Google print, google publisher, open content alliance, etc
- high quality metadata will improve search precision
- commercial search providers already offer search inside the book
- library search doesn’t do this!!!
Beyond discovery to fulfillment / delivery: this is the harder part - harder than discovery
Enterprise integration:
- ability to deliver content and services through non-library apps
- courseware, portals, social networking environments, etc
Great Benefit, Great Cost
We’re WAY TOO SLOW. Time on the web moves quickly! We need to catch up.
ideas to buy/use:
- Endeca - one of the first
- LibraryThing for Libraries:Wow - they are now distributed exclusively by RR Bowker
- Primo: tailored for academic libraries
- Encore from Innovative Interfaces (Nashville Public Library uses it)
- Worldcat Local
- TLCs LS2 (Shanandoah Public Library) good visual design
- SirsiDynix Enterprise. not aware of anyone actually using it yet ; it’s a hosted product does relevancy well uses chilifresh for book reviews
Marshall’s example is very ugly! Sirsi really needs a visual designer!
Scriblio:
Wordpress - looks great
Marshall’s not sure how it will scale same stuff - faceted search, relevance, etc
VUFind:
production cat for the National Library of Australia - that’s pretty big.
open source, looks great
BiblioCommons
focuses on social networking, tag, review, comments, etc oakville public library in ontario - in production. Looks great!
Summon serials solutions product eXtensibe Catalog
Polaris, Koha, Evergreen - doing well with providing next-gen features too
Q/A:
question/comment: We have a next-gen catalog, our faculty don’t get it - don’t understand faceted search, don’t know what a tag cloud is, etc - how do you get around that?
Answer: well, Amazon doesn’t seem to need to explain their faceted search, tag, etc stuff… ouch!
Source: http://www.davidleeking.com/2009/01/24/next-generation-library-interfaces/
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