transforming the opac: web 2.0, mobile, and discovery
DESCRIPTION
Mohican 2012 Technical Services ConferenceTRANSCRIPT
My Viewpoint = Not Cataloger
O 2nd time @ MohicanO Team Leader Research Services:
Reference, collections, instruction, faculty liaison duties
O Public-sideO OhioLINK Discovery Layer TaskforceO Case discovery layer selection:
Summon
My Viewpoint = Not Cataloger
O Understand the systems, but not all the details
O Engineer by trainingO EfficiencyO How?O Improvement potential
My Viewpoint = Not Cataloger
O KSU SLIS instructionO LIS 60003 Information Technology for
Library & Information ProfessionalsO Workshop: Using Web 2.0 Principles to
Become Librarian and Educator 2.0O Science ReferenceO In-person & online-only
Goals for Today
O We cannot all know everything & we get stuck in our day-to-day → Take today to see new ideas
O Be in a safe place to question the past, question the accepted, & question the traditional
O Leave Mohican with a collaborator, an idea, or both
Discovery vs. Federated
O FederatedO Conducts search against each
sourceO Combines the resultsO Limits metadata to the common
fieldsO Relies on “connectors”
Discovery vs. Federated
ODiscoveryOTypically, one big index –
think GoogleOPre-indexed, pre-faceted,
etc.OAnything can be “ingested”
Librarians Strugglewith Discovery
O Most services do not contain databases, but contain contentO Think books, journals, images instead of
databasesO Brings back lots of results
O Librarian teach start broad and limit but still strive for perfect search strategies –now reimagine search
O Results may be different every time
Librarians Strugglewith Discovery
O Search full-text so relevancy not as obvious (but can be tweaked)
O Must rethink search processes to utilize faceting to reduce results
O Some have the approach avoid Google but now a Google-like tool for libraries comes along
Case’s Experience
O Goal: Fast implementationO Why?
O Get something to people so we can get feedback for the future
O Student life cycle is shortO Result: Couple months
Case’s Experience
O Goal: Everywhere, anywhere
Case’s ExperienceO Beta roll outO Fix it on the fly (i.e. things can be
made better over time)O No long-term commitments – Better
may come alongO Tool for all
Came just as we were phasing out a formal Reference Desk & I believe made the changes more possible for
others to do Reference.
What We Learned:The Unexpected
O Reference: Search styles and skills had become stale & inflexible
O Playground for discovery & common ground for discussion
O Bonus: Catalog cleanupO LocationsO Duplication
What I Learned
O Small actionable teamO Experiment/pilot – Faculty &
students will support it and helpO Advocate with our vendors for
improvements & changesO Partner/leverage vendors
Future because of Discovery?
OWhen does the discovery layer become the only public facing interface?
Future because of Discovery?
OHow much content can be just “turned on” in a discovery layer rather than cataloged for the ILS?
Future because of Discovery?
OHas discovery become a natural transition to walking away from the traditional ILS to a cloud-based service?
Web 2.0 in Catalogs
O Adding new features to existing catalogs
O Linking out to new sources of information
O Trying to create environments similar to successful processes, websites, & styles
Gold Coast Libraries:Full Screen Browsing
Mobile may be easier than you think…
O Some examples:O SummonO LibraryThingO LibGuidesO WorldCat
O Do you know about “mobile emulators”?
LibraryThing LibGuides
Summon WorldCat
eXtensible CatalogO “Open source, user-centered, next
generation software for libraries and consortia. It comprises four software components that can be used independently to address a particular need or combined to provide an end-to-end discovery system to connect library users with resources.”
O University of Rochester
eXtensible Catalog: User Interface
O “Drupal Toolkit integrates searchable library metadata, ILS circulation services, repository content and library website content into a feature-rich web user interface.”
O “Out-of-the-box search interface offers faceted browsing with customizable facets. A platform to build custom web applications that integrate with library metadata and ILS circulation services is also provided.”
eXtensible Catalog: Metadata Management
O “Enables the XC user interface to present FRBRized, faceted navigation across a range of library resources. The toolkit aggregates metadata from various silos, normalizes (cleans-up) metadata of varying levels of quality, and transform MARC and DC metadata into a consistent format for use in the discovery layer.”
O “Presents an opportunity for libraries to apply their expertise with creating and managing metadata in a variety of web applications.”
eXtensible Catalog: Connectivity
O “OAI Toolkit provides synchronization with MARC metadata that is managed by the ILS.”
O “NCIP Toolkit provides live circulation status display, circulation forms submission, and ILS authentication for applications that work alongside your ILS. “
Assessment, Statistics, & Promotion
OHow many of you tell your story outside the library?
OHow many of your users know what happens behind the scenes?
KSL’s Public Wow
KSL’s Public WowO http://library.case.edu/ksl/whoweare/statis
tics/publicwow.html
KSL’s Public Wow
KSL’s Public Wow
Areas of Growth forIncreased Library Value
O Open, accessible, & shared dataO Local contentO Data managementO Data synthesisO Mashing, expanding, & creating new products
from existing information
O I do not see any library catalogs that support these areas except for displaying a record to a finding aid.
Final Thoughts
O“Play”, experiment, & pilotOAdvocate for vendors to
make changesOLeverage the vendors to
work for you
Final Thoughts
O “Thinking outside the box” has resulted in bringing features into our OPACS but imagine starting brand new as some of the discovery tools have
O Lets stop retrofitting
Final ThoughtsOWho will build the next
catalog alternative?OWho are the players?OHow long can we keep
upgrading & continue to lose users to new alternatives?
Final ThoughtsJust think…O Imagine Google bought an
existing OPAC - Can you imagine them just trying to fix it?
O Imagine if Amazon was the library catalog – not the catalog like Amazon.
Brian C. Gray
O Kelvin Smith Library, Case Western Reserve University
O Team Leader, Research ServicesO Librarian: Chemical Engineering and
Macromolecular Science & Engineering
O Email: [email protected] http://www.slideshare.net/bcg8