Focus on the User 2.0

Advocating for Information Literacy and Next-Generation OPAC

EnhancementsJill Baron17:610:519 March 10, 2011

Example 1: When the user knows what she wants to find

Title searchfor Just Kids (2010)

Success! Record located: “Just kids”

LC Subject Headings

Location andStatus Information

Example 2: The user is uncertain

Princes Lane Looking South, The RocksGlass plate negativeDate: 1880-1923 approximatelyTyrrell Photographic Collection, Powerhouse Museum, Australia

Keywordsearch basedon natural languagequery

LCSH: American poetry—20th century—History and Criticism

OPAC 1.0

Search Discover Locate

OPAC 1.0

Search Dis

Where is our user going to go?

Amazon.com

Google.com

OPAC 1.0

Lee, Russell,, 1903-1986Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range, Madison County, Montana1942 Aug. 1 transparency : color.Library of Congress

The web of connectivity

Library of Congress on Bibliographic Control (2008): Guiding Principles

• Collaborative, decentralized, international in scope, and Web-based

• In cooperation with the private sector, and with the active collaboration of library users

OPAC 2.0: for the library

3rd Party Vendors

Consortia,Affiliates

RUL Tech Services

OPAC 2.0: for the user

Discover

Locate

Search

Library Thing for Libraries (LTFL)

• Overlay for catalog using Javascript• Pulls data from LT by ISBN• Displays tags, etc. in catalog record• Provides quick and easy folksonomy into the

OPAC• Overlap between “holdings” is typically 46%

Item search

Washington University in St. Louis Libraries

Aqua-Browser Catalog Record

Tag Cloud

Link to Classic Catalog

Desiredrecord

Catalog record

Classic Catalog

LC Subject Headings for Just Kids

• Smith, Patti. • Mapplethorpe, Robert. • Women rock musicians -- United States -- Biography. • Photographers -- United States -- Biography. • Women poets -- 20th century -- Biography. • Poets, American -- 20th century -- Biography. • Chelsea Hotel -- Biography. • Artists -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography. • Musicians -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography. • New York (N.Y.) -- Biography.

LTFL Tags for Just Kids

• 1960s 1970s AIDS American literature Andy Warhol art artists autobiography bio biography Bob Dylan Brooklyn friendship history love memoir music music history musicians National Book Award New York NYC photography poetry pop culture punk relationships rock rock_and_roll Warhol

User Tagging

• User-oriented• Empowering• Democratic• Cheap• Collaborative• Distributed• Dynamic• Instructive

Furner (2008)

Possible obstacles

• Tag Relevancy• Difficult to evaluate benefit or assess use of

LTFL in the OPAC– Do users notice tags?– Do users find materials based on tags?– LTFL provides usage statistics, but are these

conclusive?

Why LTFL promotes information literacy

• Increased browsing and discovery• Access to reviews, recommendations,

summaries• Invitation to participate (via LT)• Searching becomes FUN• Ability to make connections, consider items in

a conceptual framework

Why LTFL promotes information literacy

•Empowers users•Makes IRIS a key player in the information search

Reference List• Breeding, Marshall. (March 3, 2010). LibraryThing Delivers Mobile Access to Library Catalogs. ALA Tech Source.

http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2010/03/librarything-delivers-mobile-access-to-library-catalogs.html (Accessed March 7, 2011)

• Coyle, K. (2007). The Library Catalog in a 2.0 World. The Journal of Academic Librarianship 33(2) 289-291. • Coyle, K. (2007). The Library Catalog: Some Possible Futures. The Journal of Academic Librarianship 33(3) 414-416. • Mendes, L. et al. (2009). Subjecting the Catalog to Tagging. Library Hi Tech 27(1) 30-41. • Furner, J. (2008). User Tagging of Library Resources: Toward a Framework for System Evaluation. International Cataloguing

Bibliographic Control 37(3) 47-51. • Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. (2008). On the Record: Report of the Library of

Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/lcwg-ontherecord-jan08-final.pdf (accessed March 8, 2011)

• LibraryThing for Libraries FAQs: http://www.librarything.com/forlibraries/about#What_does_LTFL_cost.3F • Rolla, P. (2009). User Tags versus Subject Headings: Can User-Supplied Data Improve Subject Access to Library Collections?

Library Resources & Technical Services 53(3) 174-184. • Westcott, J. (2008). Library Thing for Libraries at Claremont. Library Hi Tech 27(1) 78-81.