Personally, I feel that the catalog does NOT have a primary user. The
data can be used in many ways, and we should be specifying OPACs that
provide multiple accesspoints at multiple levels of granularity to suit
our DIFFERENT user bases.
Even a public library serving it's local population has different types
of users, from serios local history researchers to leisure readers; they
require different presentation styles and cross referencing tools.
Tim
Tim Hodson
http://informationtakesover.co.uk
Herefordshire Libraries, UK
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu]On Behalf Of Eric Lease Morgan
Sent: 07 June 2006 14:26
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: who is the primary user?
On Jun 7, 2006, at 8:58 AM, Edward Hoyenski wrote:
> I'm in our libraries' rare book department, and I find that ONE of
> the primary users of the front-end of our catalog is ME. Users
> can't browse our rare items, and therefore come to me to find out
> if we have things like presentation bindings, 18th century
> bookplates, books in Hebrew.
In this case, the catalog truly is a catalog -- an inventory control
system listing the stuff you own. Most places are not special
collections. Most library users have needs that go beyond the things
physically located in a library. Maybe the "catalog" should be just
part of the face -- the interface -- provided to the user? Even if
you were the primary user of the system, you, as a librarian, have an
expert experience. You are a power user. The interface you can use is
different from the interface the non-experts can use. Your
expectations do not the match the expectations of the non-librarians.
If our "catalogs" do not meet the expectations of our sponsors, then
you can not expect the sponsors to continue to support us. Libraries
always exist within the context of a larger institution. It is
important to meet this larger institution's expectations or risk
becoming irrelevant.
Again, I posit that the primary user's of "catalogs" is not the
librarians. We can not be all things to all people. We have limited
resources. We must set priorities. There can only be one primary set
of users.
--
Eric Lease Morgan
University Libraries of Notre Dame
I'm hiring a Senior Programmer Analyst.
See http://dewey.library.nd.edu/morgan/programmer/.
Received on Wed Jun 07 2006 - 10:36:41 EDT