[Web4lib] browsing and searching (not versus) in Opacs

[Jorge Serrano Cobos]

Hi people:

Here is my question: do you know good examples of succesfull webpacs, opacs,
using both browsing and searching?

I know for instance:

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/catalog/browse.html

http://ebooks.nypl.org/1B77F48D-F3B6-47DB-9435-CC96EF232D89/10/206/en/Default.htm

http://www.worldcat.org/

Ok, the last ones are not showing browsing from the very first moment, but
are examples.

The underneath question is: have these Opacs (or other you know) improved
their performance after using/adding browsing facilities to the interface?
My argument is that I´ve tried this on other kind of websites (on topics
such as tourism and sales) and works very well.

We have seen more visits / pages (more, really really more) for an item when
browsing is enhanced, and at the same time, less searches on any kind of
keywords related to that item. Users browse in first place many times,
depending on how is prepared the interface, and if they don´t see what they
want, then use searching.

But I never could try this (or examine statistics for myself) on libraries
Opac, and I don´t understand why Opac software relies so much on just
searching, being in the "realm of the classifications", when having almost
no context (no free text, only a few metadata), Opac search is many times so
awful, compared with something like Google, which is being helped by context
(full text, synonyms, stemming... ) and links, for example.

And if that Opac or library portal were using "interest centres" (that is
the correct english expression, isn´t it? -sorry for my english- categories
like "horror", "adventures", "sci-fi", instead of having books by author if
Dewey or UDC)  on the browsing categories, would be a even better example. I
know about some successful stories about libraries using interest centres
on physical libraries, numbers growing on books being more borrowed,
unearthing them from the long tail, and would be great to know about digital
libraries or library portals using them and having more visits.

If not, I encourage everybody to experiment that way. Having balanced how we
display it all, could be a better way to improve performance, don´t you
think so?

Anyway, thank you in advance for your comments,

-- 
Jorge Serrano Cobos
Content Department
http//www.masmedios.com

Thinkepi Group Member
http://www.thinkepi.net
Web personal: http://trucosdegoogle.blogspot.com