Jimmie Lundgren said:
"Could it be that we would satisfy users better with easy services to deliver the book to the user? I suspect that might greatly increase the popularity of a library's catalog...Has anyone yet compared user assessments of their catalogs with similar ones not doing so?"
I spent the bulk of my 30+ year library career working with a series of systems where "getting it" had a high priority.
At least 25 years ago University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign faculty and staff could request items online and have them shipped to their offices. Today the Consortium of Academic an Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) manages the Illinois Library Delivery Service (ILDS), which is a courier service that transports library materials between participating Illinois academic and research libraries to support interlibrary resource sharing in the state of Illinois. The service guarantees a 24-hour turnaround time on Mondays-Fridays between any two ILDS locations’ delivery docks, eliminating a lot of the typical delays with ILL materials.
Of course, getting the item to the user more quickly doesn't necessarily translate into the catalog being used more effectively as a discovery tool. For years I was used to having items delivered directly to my office in far less time than in most other states. But I still pretty much used the catalog as I have described in an earier posting: in a very limited way to check for the availability of items I discovered elsewhere.
I know this is anecdotal, but I knew several faculty members who used the system in pretty much the same way. It's not a knock against a specific catalog, but against catalogs in general.
Bernie Sloan
Sora Associates
Bloomington, IN
--- On Tue, 2/17/09, Lundgren,Jimmie Harrell <jimlund_at_UFLIB.UFL.EDU> wrote:
> From: Lundgren,Jimmie Harrell <jimlund_at_UFLIB.UFL.EDU>
> Subject: [NGC4LIB] Getting It?
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Date: Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 9:09 AM
> So many times we hear that library catalogs fail in the
> imagined popularity contest against Google or Amazon.com. We
> are encouraged to believe that is explained by their greater
> comprehensiveness or superiority as discovery tools.
>
> Please take a moment to question those assumptions. What
> obvious differences exist between library catalogs and those
> systems some would have us emulate? One significant
> difference may lie in the outcomes of searches in those
> tools. Searchers in Google are usually rewarded by being
> able to get what they find immediately with a click of the
> mouse. Searchers in Amazon.com are able to order online
> immediately and sit back and wait for the book to arrive.
> Searchers in catalogs in some cases are able to get what
> they find immediately online, but more often they have to
> get up out of their chairs and go to a shelf somewhere and
> take down a book. Users, unlike some librarians, may not be
> so obsessed with discovery but want to actually get the
> information resource they need as easily as possible.
>
> Could it be that we would satisfy users better with easy
> services to deliver the book to the user? I suspect that
> might greatly increase the popularity of a library's
> catalog. I think some libraries may offer such services,
> probably fee-based. Has anyone yet compared user assessments
> of their catalogs with similar ones not doing so?
>
> Even with online resources, libraries often require
> repeated logins by users before actual access. As a user I
> have found this quite frustrating and discouraging and admit
> sometimes I have just given up.
>
> Some comments from Karen Calhoun at ALA Midwinter about
> OCLC's user studies led me to greater awareness of the
> importance of obtaining resources to users.
> "Obtain" is, after all, one of the four FRBR user
> tasks that have been clearly identified along with find,
> select and identify. I understand that publication of that
> research should occur in the near future.
>
> Better catalogs will be great, and I encourage everyone to
> keep working on them. Can we also improve the situation of
> helping users "Get It" more easily?
>
> Thanks and have a great day,
> Jimmie
Received on Tue Feb 17 2009 - 17:59:41 EST