[Web4lib] How to label the OPAC

[Ross Singer]

You know, in all this, I still have yet to see anybody definitively state:

A) why the "catalog" is so important
B) what exactly seperates the catalog from the other electronic resources

-Ross.

bernhard Eversberg wrote:

> K.G. Schneider wrote:
>
>>
>> Bingo. Many users will only encounter us through the Web--that has to 
>> be the
>> primary assumption going in. And how many potential users do we
>> lose--reasonably intelligent people who are making every effort to apply
>> what they know to our websites--because they look, they apply knowledge,
>> then they conclude we don't offer what we need? They aren't "dumb," 
>> and it's
>> not dumbing anything down to design the system around their task 
>> knowledge.
>
> Well, wouldn't that argument hold for *every* Web service, not just 
> for ours? What, then, is the core "task knowledge" we can safely 
> assume every user to possess? This gets us nowhere, I'm afraid.
> I'm amazed that one should even *consider*  avoiding a term like 
> "catalog" which is at the very core of library services and without 
> which no library can function. Are we telling users, "You dont't have 
> to learn *anything* here, its all easy as pie", or what? They'll find 
> out soon enough it isn't true. I'm not saying we should be proud of 
> catalogs, but they are nothing to be ashamed of either.
>
> On one of our earlier designs, we had
>    "Catalog (Find and borrow books)"
> (and the parenth in smaller script). There were no complaints with 
> this or our present design saying just "Catalogue":
>    http://www.biblio.tu-bs.de/english/
> or in German, "Der Katalog". Just adding the article, "The Catalog", 
> and placing this link prominently  might emphasize that this is 
> something not to be ignored if in fact it doesn't ring a bell for 
> someone.
>
> Bernhard Eversberg
> Universitätsbibliothek Braunschweig
>
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