the future of the opac...?
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May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 1
The Future of the OPAC...?
lipstick, cowbells and serendipity
Dave Pattern, Library Systems ManagerUniversity of Huddersfield
d.c.pattern@hud.ac.ukhttp://library.hud.ac.uk/barcelona
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 2
Contents• OPAC 1.0 – does your OPAC “suck”?• OPAC 1.? – the Huddersfield
experience• OPAC 1.? – other Libraries• OPAC 2.0 – crystal ball time!
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 3
Does Your OPAC “Suck”?
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 4
“The OPAC Sucks” Song
The OPAC sucks, that's all I gotta sayYou're outta luck if you can't spell
“Hemingway”...The OPAC sucks, a sad calamityLike it's stuck in 8 million B.C.The title that I seekIs buried very deep
(lyrics by Brian Smith, Chicago Librarian)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 5
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 6
“More Cowbell” …huh?
“Used to express that something is deeply lacking oomph... to express that something
is far from perfect, needs repair, fixing, rectifying.” (everything2.com)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 7
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 8
K. Schneider - “The User is Not Broken”
• All technologies evolve and die. Every technology you learned about in library school will be dead someday.
• You fear loss of control, but that has already happened. Ride the wave.
• The user is not broken.• Your system is broken until proven otherwise.• It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a
needle than to find a library website that is usable and friendly and provides services rather than talking about them in weird library jargon.
• Meet people where they are – not where you want them to be.
• Stop moaning about the good old days. The card catalog sucked, and you thought so at the time, too.
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 9
Quick OPAC Survey• One criticism of OPACs is that they rarely
have cutting edge features (or perhaps even basic 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
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 10
Quick OPAC Survey• On a scale of 1 to 10, how easy do you think
one of your average users finds your OPAC is to use?
4.6• On a scale of 1 to 10, how important do you
think it is that an OPAC is easy & intuitive to use?
9.2
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 11
Quick 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
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 12
The Huddersfield Experience
• definitely not OPAC 2.0• enhancements to the existing OPAC
(HIP)– 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
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 13
Spell Checker
• we monitored keyword searches over a six month period and discovered approx 23% of searches gave zero results– most OPACs present the user with a
“dead end” page– a good search engine should still give
the user options on a failed search (“did you mean?”)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 14
Spell Checker
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 15
Spell Checker
• spell checker based on a common word dictionary or your own holdings?
• spell checker might highlight your cataloguing errors1!
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 16
Keyword Suggestions
• failed keyword searches are cross referenced with www.answers.com to provide new search suggestions
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 17
Keyword Suggestions
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 18
Borrowing Suggestions
• we had details of over 2,000,000 CKOs spanning 10 years stored in the library management system and gathering virtual dust
• Web 2.0 – “Data is the Next Intel Inside1”• historic circulation data can be mined2 to
uncover the hidden trends and links between potentially disparate library items
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 19
Borrowing Suggestions
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 20
Ratings and Comments
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 21
Other Editions
• uses FRBR-y web services provided by OCLC and LibraryThing to locate other editions and related works within local holdings– OCLC’s xISBN1
– LibraryThing’s thingISBN2
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 22
Other Editions
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 23
RSS Feeds
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 24
RSS Aggregators
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 25
a9.com (“Stealth OPAC”)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 26
Email Alerts
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 27
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)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 28
Problems ...Challenges!• there was no formal process for discussing
and agreeing new OPAC features– so we organised a web/library 2.0 afternoon for staff
• some initial scepticism from staff– would users think borrowing suggestions were formal
recommendations from the library?– aren’t borrowing suggestions just for selling books?– how relevant will the suggestions be?
• would sudden changes confuse users?
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 29
Solutions
• 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 then remove it
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 30
“If you build it, will they come?”
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 31
Other Libraries
• Ann Arbor District Library• North Carolina State University• Plymouth State University (WPopac)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 32
Ann Arbor District Library
• OPAC deeply embedded in Library portal
• virtual catalogue cards (with graffiti!)• user tagging, ratings, and reviews• borrowing suggestions• RSS feeds• http://www.aadl.org/catalog/
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 33
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 34
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 35
North Carolina State University
• facetted browsing• http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/catalog/
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 36
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 37
Plymouth State University• Casey Bisson’s WPopac• OPAC built from popular blogging
software• enriched content from Amazon• tags (user generated?)• related items• user comments and reviews• “trackbacks” (blog equivalent of citations)• http://www.plymouth.edu/library/opac/
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 38
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 39
Quick OPAC Survey
• quick and informal OPAC survey targeted at librarians and library staff
• received 729 responses from all types of libraries, including– 452 from USA and 46 from Canada– 175 from UK and Ireland– 35 from Australia and New Zealand– 15 others from Europe
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 40
“How far in the past do you feel your current OPAC is?”
1519
15
38
46
55
99
46
70
58
99
108
31
25
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
nu
mb
er
of
res
po
nd
en
ts (
tota
l 72
9)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 41
Quick OPAC Survey• Have you ever experienced “OPAC envy”
when looking at someone else’s OPAC?
78% said “yes”
• Do you run any face-to-face training or in(tro)duction courses on "how to use" the OPAC with your users?
64% said “yes”
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 42
64% of us offer OPAC training
• “I wish I had known that the solution for needing to teach our users how to search our catalog was to create a system that didn't need to be taught.
While we were focused on crafting integrated library systems that served our needs, our users got left behind. Is it any wonder that they can't understand why our systems aren't as easy to work with as Amazon?”
(Roy Tennant, Library Journal)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 43
OPAC 2.0?OPAC 2.0?
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 44
OPAC 2.0
• “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
(Alan Kay, computer scientist and former Xerox PARC researcher)
• “The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.”
(William Gibson, science fiction authorand creator of the word “cyberspace”)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 45
OPAC 2.0
• shopping list of features:– spell checking (“did you mean?”)– 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
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 46
OPAC 2.0
• shopping list of features:– 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)– RSS feeds and OpenSearch
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 47
Quick 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 6.1– personalised suggestions (e.g. like Amazon) 6.0– user added ratings for items 5.7
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 48
Implementation of Features
0
100
200
300
400
500
nu
mb
er
of
resp
on
de
nts
(to
tal
72
9)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
imp
ort
an
ce (
ou
t o
f 1
0)
already got getting soon importance
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 49
Features – Future Trends?Rate of I ncrease of Feature I mplementation
72%
130%
28%
137%
311%279%
189%167%
500%
122%
0%
100%
200%
300%
400%
500%
600%
% i
ncr
ea
se
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
imp
ort
an
ce (
ou
t o
f 1
0)
% increase in "getting soon" compared to "already got" importance
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 50
Technology Adoption Lifecycle
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 51
Technology Adoption - Now
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 52
Technology Adoption – Q4 07?
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 53
Importance (already got)Feature I mportance
8.7 8.6 8.4
7.87.4
6.56.1 6.1 6.0
5.7
8.98.5
9.0
7.8 7.97.6 7.5
6.97.3
6.5
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
imp
ort
an
ce
(o
ut
of
10
)
importance (all) importance (already got)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 54
Importance (getting soon)Feature I mportance
8.7 8.6 8.4
7.87.4
6.56.1 6.1 6.0
5.7
9.18.8 8.8
8.48.9
7.8 8.0
7.4
8.7
7.0
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
imp
ort
an
ce
(o
ut
of
10
)
importance (all) importance (already got) importance (getting soon)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 55
Importance – UK respondents
5.9
8.17.9
6.5
7.3
8.6
5.55.9
5.35.7
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
alsoborrowed
did youmean
enriched facets RSS feeds stealthOPAC
usercomments
userlearning
userratings
usertagging
Import
ance
(out
of
10)
rest of World UK
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 56
Is the UK lagging behind?
0%
100%
200%
300%
400%
500%
600%
% i
ncr
ea
se
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
imp
ort
an
ce (
ou
t o
f 1
0)
% increase in "getting soon" compared to "already got" UK respondents only importance
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 57
Academic v Public (all respondents)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
alsoborrowed
did youmean
enriched facets RSS feeds stealthOPAC
usercomments
userlearning
userratings
usertagging
imp
ort
an
ce (
ou
t o
f 1
0)
Academic Public
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 58
Academic v Public (SirsiDynix)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
alsoborrowed
did youmean
enriched facets RSS feeds stealthOPAC
usercomments
userlearning
user ratings usertagging
Imp
ort
an
ce
(o
ut
of
10
)
Academic (23) Public (33)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 59
SirsiDynix Academic
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
alsoborrowed
did youmean
enriched facets RSS feeds stealthOPAC
usercomments
userlearning
user ratings usertagging
Imp
ort
an
ce
(o
ut
of
10
)
SirsiDynix academic (23) average all academic (148)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 60
SirsiDynix Public
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
alsoborrowed
did youmean
enriched facets RSS feeds stealthOPAC
usercomments
userlearning
user ratings usertagging
Imp
ort
an
ce
(o
ut
of
10
)
SirsiDynix public (33) average all public (75)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 61
Some Final Quotes
• “The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.”
(Abraham Lincoln)
• “There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.”
(Winston Churchill)
• “Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine.”
(Robert C. Gallagher)
May 2007 Barcelona - OPAC 2.0 62
Thank you! Any quick questions?
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