> Selden Deemer wrote:
>
> Whatever the considerable benefits of browse displays (I
> read, and took to heart Thomas Mann's comments), the fact
> remains that, when I look at our search log stats, users (as
> opposed to librarians) simply do NOT browse (and it's not for
> lack of instruction).
I'm convinced that the underlying "problem" with our OPACs (from a usability perspective) is that they are sold once to librarians, rather than many times to end users. If each user was making an individual purchase decision, OPACs would have quickly evolved to meet their needs. I believe ILS vendors (who we often unfairly blame) are quite capable of producing an awesome OPAC. But the vendors are building OPACs to meet our (i.e. librarians) perceived needs, because vendors are smart and are in business to make money and they understand that *we* are the ones writing that big check every 10-15 years or so. As Selden points out, OPAC features that are important/essential to us, are often ones that our users could care less about, despite all our well-meaning instruction.
And that is assuming that OPAC functionality/usability is even a prime consideration in the purchase decision of an ILS. Very often that's not the case, as acquisitions, cataloging, or circulation module features drive the decision and the OPAC is an afterthought. If we want to find out who's responsible for sucky OPACs, the first place we need to look is in the mirror [1].
On the bright side, products like VUFind, Primo, AquaBrowser, and Endeca unbundle the OPAC from the ILS, giving us a chance to atone for past ILS purchase decisions (which can't easily be undone). One of the problems inherent in an ILS-bundled OPAC is that the 10-15 year (give or take) ILS replacement cycle does not allow for significant changes to what quickly becomes a calcified code base. I'm particularly excited about Andrew Nagy's recently released open-source OPAC; with VUFind, the library-land development community has a golden opportunity to craft an OPAC that genuinely meets our users needs. However, doing so will require that we resist the temptation to create the ideal OPAC for *librarians*, but instead focus on creating on OPAC that meets our *users'* search needs. I think that would be an OPAC that doesn't require instruction (however well-meaning) or require an initial search page that is 80% search tips.
Just my opinion...
-- Michael
[1] Karen Schneider asks: "But the interesting questions are: Why don't online catalog vendors offer true search in the first place? and Why [don't we] demand it? Save the time of the reader!" I would answer that vendors don't offer it, and we don't demand it, because the ILS (OPAC) check-writers have other priorities.
See: Karen Schneider, How OPACs Suck, Part 1
http://www.techsource.ala.org/blog/2006/03/how-opacs-suck-part-1-relevance-rank-or-the-lack-of-it.html
# Michael Doran, Systems Librarian
# University of Texas at Arlington
# 817-272-5326 office
# 817-688-1926 mobile
# doran_at_uta.edu
# http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/
Received on Thu Jul 26 2007 - 08:14:50 EDT