Inspired by the thread on the value of cataloging, I had an interesting discussion recently with a colleague regarding library catalog use. This person is a former instruction librarian and understands how to use library catalogs. She is in academia now (but not in libraries). She makes extensive use of books in her research and visits the library fairly regularly.
When asked about catalog use, this person indicated that she basically just uses the catalog to see if the library holds a physical item she's learned about elsewhere. (This person has developed multiple effective ways of learning about items of interest that I won't go into here).
Anyway, this person's use of the catalog is pretty much limited to doing known-item searches. If the book is available, she goes to the library and picks it up. If it's not available she uses the catalog to initiate an ILL request. That's about it as far as catalog use.
Upon further reflection, I have to admit that that's also pretty much how I use the library catalog these days. And I was a librarian for 35 years. Sure, I'll occasionally do some keyword searching on the catalog, but by and large I've developed information-seeking behavior that requires minimal use of the library's catalog. I wasn't always like this...I used to use the catalog extensively. But my behavior evolved as increasingly more information-seeking resources became available online.
I'm not saying that libraries are superfluous...I'm a big library supporter. I guess I'm saying that library catalogs have failed to evolve much over the years. Online catalogs were first developed back when libraries were still pretty much the only game in town (or on campus) when it came to information access. And library catalogs still seem to reflect that "only game in town" mentality, in an age where many alternatives exist.
Bernie Sloan
Sora Associates
Bloomington, IN
Received on Thu Feb 12 2009 - 17:12:47 EST