[Web4lib] Role of the OPAC (was: library automation vendors)

[David Walker]

Great question, Ross.

I think the essential mistake we make with the OPAC, or library catalog,
is to treat it as a single system.  This is problematic on two levels:

(1) Our users don't know what a "library catalog" is.

How do I find books in a library?  Through the library catalog, of
course.  But you can only say "of course" because you already know that.
The freshman walking thru the doors of our library this fall don't have
that knowledge. (It's amazing to me that the word "books" doesn't appear
on many library home pages.  If it's not easy to find books in a
library, you know you're in trouble!)

How about book reviews?  Those should be in the catalog too, right?
Nope, those are in a totally different part of our site.  Journals?
Catalog.  Unless you're looking for an 'electronic' journal, which in
many libraries is in a separate journal list.  Journal articles?  Not in
the catalog.  Print reserves are in our catalog, but 'electronic'
reserves are in a different system, both of which are different from the
online video system we'll be using for those types of reserves this next
year.  But other types of videos are in the catalog.

Oh, yeah, if you're looking for books beyond our library -- that is,
books that are available via delivery -- those aren't in the catalog.


In my mind, what we need to do is basically get rid of the catalog.  Not
the system itself, but the whole idea of a "library catalog."  We should
nix any reference to it from our web sites, and just group like content
together regardless of what system contains that content.

Print journals, electronic journals, and journal articles should be
searchable and browse-able from a single place in the web site --
probably called "journals" or something like that.  Print reserves,
electronic reserves, and online video reserves should be searchable and
browse-able from a single point -- lets call that "reserves".  Books,
regardless of where they are, should be searchable from one place,
called "Socrates."  No, I'm just kidding, call it "books."  And so on.

We can achieve this by:

(1) Scoping our catalogs to treat things like journals and media
differently.
(2) Use metasearch to group the catalog with other book databases when
giving people book search options.
(3) Create 'harvesters' to extract content, like reserves, out of the
catalog and combine that with the content of other systems.

Metasearching also lets us get beyond format to also present library
resources around subjects -- in my mind a much more useful view.  But
most metasearch systems only "integrate" the catalog via Z39.50 -- which
does make it easy, as Jim said -- but essentially treats the catalog
again as a single system.  Many OPAC Z39.50 servers simply don't allow
you to take advantage of scoped searches and other limits that would be
useful.  And so I think we need to do more beyond Z39.50.

In that way, the catalog is nowhere and everywhere at the same time.
But what it is not is a system unto itself, because our users don't want
to search a bunch of different systems, each unto itself.  They just
want to "search the library."

That was way too long.  I'll get back to point two later. :-)

--Dave

=================
David Walker
Web Development Librarian
Library
Cal State San Marcos
760-750-4379
=================

 

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Ross Singer
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2005 7:30 AM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Web4lib] Role of the OPAC (was: library automation vendors)

I think Jim Campbell and David Walker have raised an extremely good
point.

In the context of the modern library (and this includes all types of
libraries), what /is/ the role of the OPAC?  What is its purpose?  Is
there a reason it is segregated from other electronic resources?

I'm very curious to hear from various corners of the profession on this
one because, honestly, I have having an extremely hard time figuring out
the utility of the catalog as a public interface.

Thanks,
-Ross.

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