Kyle Banerjee wrote:
>
> One of the reasons browsing bookshelves works so well in stores is
> because their collections are small. You can browse the technology
> section in a bookstore, but this would be a hopeless way to find
> something in a major academic library.
>
Is there a way to use novel computer interfaces to ameliorate this?
Compare to the iTunes "flip" interface. Or increasing interfaces, like
the Zoomi one, that allow intuitive zoom and pan taking advantage of
today's high-resolution displays. (Fancy Microsoft table thing everyone
was excited about a few months ago?). But yeah, it would surprise me if
anyone wanted to browse the entire collection starting at the top
visually. But "Hey, here's a book i want, can I browse the shelf this
book is on visually"?
> In my experience, covers are popular with everyone -- but as eye candy
> rather than as something that is useful. If a cover isn't available
> for the edition you have and you substitute a cover for another
> edition that may look quite different, people perceive an improvement
> in the catalog. I'll bet if you displayed random covers with the text
> obscured, few people would realize what was going on.
>
Sometimes eye candy might matter. But yeah, I actually _don't_ think
that people like covers because of recognizing a cover they've seen
before on a physical book, neccesarily. I think they like them because
prettying up the interface makes their whole experience more pleasurable.
I also think that, even if they've never seen the books before at all,
presenting them visually lets people use their visual memory to remember
which books are of interest as they can a list. Scanning a text list,
you think oh gee, that one looks good, but let's see what else is there
that might be even better, but let's keep that one in mind in case
there's nothing even better. When you want to return to that one you
kept in mind, the visual cues make it easier to return to in the list
than a simple textual list.
But I'm just guessing. All I really know is that I personally like it a
lot better when there are covers. Some actual research based on actual
typical patrons would be extremely useful. There may be all sorts of
actual cognitive (not just aesthetic) reasons that covers are helpful to
people that we're not thinking of just trying to make things up
ourselves. If people like covers so much, I suspect there is some
cognitive reason for it.
Jonathan
> kyle
>
>
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Digital Services Software Engineer
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
Received on Thu Jun 26 2008 - 10:37:45 EDT