The internal format is what makes possible or constrains many of the
things we'd like to do though.
Our software is intimately connected to our cataloging and metadata
practices, like it or not.
Jonathan
Sharon Foster wrote:
> Jim,
>
> There's a difference between the internal data format and how that
> data is displayed at the user interface. I don't think Tim was
> addressing the internal format in his critique, although I'm sure he
> has opinions about that, too. The point--among many--is that the ISBD
> punctuation is only useful if you're going to print out cards, real
> cards. It's nothing but noise to the typical public library user.
> What's so hard about presenting that data as
>
> Title: Barack Obama: this improbable quest
> Author: John K. Wilson
>
> It's 2009. We have the technology.
>
> Sharon
>
> Sharon M. Foster, 91.7% Librarian
> Speaker-to-Computers
> http://www.vsa-software.com/mlsportfolio/
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 4:14 AM, Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu> wrote:
>
>> Tim,
>>
>> Thanks so much for a long and thoughtful critique of a library catalog. You have a lot of good insights, but it shouldn't be a surprise to you or to anybody else, that I have a few points in reply.
>>
>> First, a lot of what you point out is based on the decisions of how a single library implemented their own catalog, which may be successful or unsuccessful. Some of the points of BPL (which I hadn't seen before) I like, and other parts I don't like. In any case, these are implementation issues, such as your commentary on the section labelled "Holdings" which I agree is not very successful. These parts however, are extremely easy to change.
>>
>> More importantly, it seems to me that a lot of what you, and others, find fault with in our catalogs is actually our standards for bibliographic description and retrieval. We have standards in punctuation, arrangement, and terminology among lots of other things. When there are standards shared with many others, including internationally, there are normally disagreements. You see it here in Europe especially, now with the introduction of the European Union where lots of businesses must follow new EU standards, such as cheese needing pasteurized milk, or the way ham is made. Often, there is such an outcry that a standard is cancelled, such as when they were saying that Italy couldn't have wood fires in urban areas, and that meant that Italian pizzas could no longer be made the traditional way! Italy rebelled, and our pizzas can still be made over wood flame (thankfully!).
>>
>> Just because the library world decides to follow the international standards of ISBD and AACR2 doesn't mean that everybody agrees with all of the rules. One rule that I think is very bad is the rule of "bibliographic identities," that is, each bibliographic identity of a modern author gets a separate heading. Therefore, if you want to look up everything by Samuel Clemens, you must look up each of his pseudonyms. This can become highly complex for searchers (first of all, they have to know about it!), and the authority files become more complex too. But I am well aware that other catalogers will strongly disagree with me and say that keeping separate bibliographic identities is critical. In either case it doesn't matter what our own opinions are, or what the general public believes, because the standards require that we keep bibliographic identities separate and there is no compromise. I must do it even though I disagree. Such standards govern each part of the catalog reco!
r!
>>
> d,!
>
>> even the
>> tiniest. You questioned capitalization of titles, and double-dashes in contents notes. That's fine, but the answer for all of these questions is: we are following the standards. And the standards are available for everyone to see if they want.
>>
>> Now the question becomes: do we want standards for the description and access of the physical and virtual products of human creativity (i.e. what the library deals with) or do we say that the time for such standards is past? I repeat: when you accept a standard, it does *not* mean that everyone agrees with it, or that the general public is expected to understand them. There are a lot of things I see on my television set, my DVD player, my plumbing, my car and so on that I don't understand. Do I need to? I don't think so--I just assume that these things follow the requirements of the experts, and that satisfies me. Now, does it really satisfy the requirements of every expert? Is there a major argument going on about it, or is there grumbling, such as in the bibliographic identities example I gave above? As a member of the general public, I don't care. I just want some sort of reliability and assurance. These sorts of discussions take place in another dimension, and I simpl!
y!
>>
> i!
>
>> gnore wha
>> t I don't understand, although if I wanted to badly enough, I could discover and understand it all.
>>
>> Still, I'm glad that there are experts following standards out there even though I may be completely ignorant of everything: so companies cannot put chalk into our bread, or throw toxic waste into our water,
>> or use unsafe materials and haphazard methods in our electronic products. As a consumer, I want people to follow standards even when I don't know about them or understand them at all. Only in this way can I be assured of quality in the materials I consume.
>>
>> If asked, would people say that they want standards for bibliography? I would venture that they would say yes, but this is the overarching, most important point that I made before and will do so again. When people say that they prefer Google over library catalogs, they are actually saying that they prefer no standards over standards. There is no "standard" in a Google search or record display, there is no yardstick, and everything happens in a black box. We don't know what it searches and what it does not, how it arranges results, who is manipulating it (because people can and do). We don't know anything at all. I don't believe the general public realizes this is really what they are saying, but it is up to us "experts" to let them know.
>>
>> So, if someone asks, "Why do I see the title entered in this way in a catalog?" there is an answer that we can point to in our standards (cataloging rules). Each rule was agreed to after a lot of debate and argument, but it doesn't mean that everyone necessarily agreed. Still, if there are going to be standards, this is what must be followed.
>>
>> In contrast, if the same person asks similar questions about Google, there is no answer because most of Google's searching is proprietary information, or the answer is simply, there are no standards, so the question itself is nonsensical. I still maintain that the reason people like Google so much is not because they understand what it can and cannot do, its strengths and weaknesses, what it misses and finds, but simply because it is so easy and it hides its weaknesses very cleverly.
>>
>> Obviously, I think there is no question that libraries and their finding tools must change and become far simpler to use. Fortunately, there is a lot of room for improvement! But I don't know if it is correct to conclude that machines must do all the work and all the thinking because "people cannot be trained." That still needs to be proved. While people quickly forget what they learned in an information literacy class, I personally think that before giving up completely we could consider working with reference services to provide alternate methods of providing very quick, highly focussed tutorials delivered to patrons when they need it, and perhaps other methods. Providing basic tutorials and other forms of help may come to be seen as one of the inherent functions of the catalog, along with description and access, something that has been needed from the beginning and should no longer be considered an afterthought.
>> I genuinely feel that getting rid of standards means getting rid of libraries themselves since all reliability and assuredness go out the window. No librarians could do their jobs. All we have to offeer are our standards, and if we want to throw these out and create non-standardized junk, there's already plenty of junk out there and it costs a lot less then we ever could.
>>
>> But, if we rather decide we want new, "improved" standards, that is a huge, exhausting undertaking doomed to failure, since it would bring lots of disagreement along with it, as any standards do. (Do you really think RDA is the answer to any of your criticisms?)
>>
>> Thanks again for your critique. I'll look at it some more.
>>
>> Jim Weinheimer
>>
>> ________________________________________________________________
>>
>> It seems to me that we go round and round on various issues. A lot of
>> it resembles a "religious debate"--a term of art in software and
>> design.
>>
>> One way to break religious debates is to talk about something
>> concrete. So, I'm going to plop something on the collective "table,"
>> offer a brief critique. Won't you join me?
>>
>> I've chosen the "detail" page of a book, the first "Obama" book that
>> came up in the BPL[1]. I propose to critique it as follows:
>>
>> *I'm going to critique the page, not the whole system; I wan
>> t to keep
>> things focused. As such, I'm not going to critique the top part of the
>> page, but just the part "below the chrome."
>> *I'm going to list everything I think is wrong with the page, and
>> offer brief commentart on it.
>> *They use the HIP OPAC, one of the most common, but not the worst.
>> *I punch because I love. I picked BPL because it is my favorite public
>> library. I love them to pieces, and indeed I think their catalog is
>> better than many.
>> *This email is very long--10 typewritten pages. That's because the
>> catalog has a lot of problems!
>>
>> Here's the page: http://www.librarything.com/pics/blog/ngc4lib2.png
>>
>> ### LEFT SIDE
>>
>> My criticisms:
>>
>> 1. The page is session-based. That means we have to discuss it by
>> screenshot, it can't be spidered, it can't be bookmarked, it can't be
>> sent to a friend and so forth. In my opinion, this is a catastrophe
>> for libraries.[2]
>>
>> 2. No permalink. Despite #1, there are tricks to link to many (but not
>> most) HIP pages, and other tricks that can link to all. The page COULD
>> include a permalink, with icon--a familiar feature of sites like
>> Google Maps. It does not.
>>
>> 3. The "Holdings" section on the left is misleading. The divet and
>> other structure implies that the things underneath it are subheadings.
>> I'm frankly uncertain if that's the intent. Maybe the list is of
>> "holdings" related to the item. If so, "Holdings" is a very weird
>> word. It's a weird word even in a librarian context--a link to a
>> review is not a "holding." And it's weirder in a non-librarian
>> context, where "holdings" doesn't mean anything at all.
>>
>> On further investigation I see that "Holdings" referred to the fact
>> that, along with all the other info, the page I was on had the
>> holdings info. The design is confusing.
>>
>> 4. The "Fiction and Biography" functions strangely. First, it's
>> meaningless--what am I to expect that it does?
>>
>> My first guess would be that it would take me to other examples of
>> Fiction and Biography. It does not. Instead, it takes me to a list of
>> headings, "Genre" and "Topics." Both have subheadings, like
>> "NonFiction" and "Politician." On Safari the headings--although
>> black--turn into links when you roll over them. On Firefox they don't.
>> In neither do the links go anywhere.
>>
>> The problem is probably technical. Whatever.
>>
>> 5. "Library Journal Review" works. Mostly. I searched for the review
>> elsewhere, and Barnes and Noble has it. Barnes and Noble preserves the
>> paragraph structure of the original, as well as italics and other
>> formatting. The BPL has it as one giant text lump.
>>
>> 6. "Summary" is somewhat confusing insofar as there is a "Summary"
>> field on the right, in the "book information area." The two are
>> different. The summary works, but it's also somewhat "undigested." It
>> ends with the non-sentence "a website where updates and comments may
>> be posted as the campaign progresses: http://obamapolitics.com Book
>> jacket."
>>
>> Why do libraries, which, if it stands for anything here, stands for
>> sophistication and exactitude of metadata, allow thesse unformatted,
>> half-gramattical text-blobs.
>>
>> 7. "Table of Contents" works pretty well. It's a bit odd, though,
>> insofar as the same content is presented in the "Contents" field of
>> the book-info-field.
>>
>> It took me a while to untagle the relationship between the two fields,
>> though. It's non-obvious. Eventually I figured out that certain data
>> (eg., the introduction, page numbers) were stripped out and returns
>> replaced with "--". (See later for my rant against that idiotic
>> typographical device.)
>>
>> 8. "More by this author" works as you'd think, but there are still problems:
>>
>> *Clicking on it takes you to other works by the author. In this case
>> there are some. In many other cases, there aren't. When there isn't,
>> it takes you to the record you are on! (Most users will record that as
>> "I clicked on the link and nothing happened. So I did it again.
>> Nothing. So I left and went to Amazon where the website works.)
>> *The Last-First format is a fossil of the "dictionary catalog." In
>> other book contexts--book covers, spines, bookst
>> ore displays, Amazon,
>> B&N, LibraryThing, publisher websites, etc.--authors are First-Last.
>> Only bibliographies still use last-first, precisely because
>> bibliographies require "dictionary order." No such order is needed
>> here. It looks fussy.
>> *It's unclear to me why the author's first name needs to be followed
>> by "1969-." Not even bibliographies do that. It's probable that
>> libraries are in the pocket of the gravestone industry.
>>
>> 9. Subjects. Some problems:
>>
>> *Subjects are in Last-First format (eg., Obama, Barack). This is
>> unusual--elsewhere I see his name as First-Last. There must be a good
>> reason. Surely it is because it's an alphabetical list. Whoops, it's
>> not. There is no reason for it.
>>
>> *The links *look* hierarchical, but they aren't. Given "United States
>> -- Race relations -- Political aspects" you'd think you could click on
>> any step of the hierarchy. You'd think wrong.
>>
>> *The links take you to a dictionary list of subjects, including the
>> one you clicked on. You have to click it again to get something. That
>> is, the link doesn't take you where you want to go, it takes you to a
>> list of thinks, including a link to where you want to go. Did humans
>> design this?
>>
>> *The use of "--" to indicate hierarchy is non-standard. The rest of
>> the information work uses ">." It's unclear why libraries think the
>> most basic web conventions must be ignored.
>>
>> *Whoever decided on using "--" in a web-product should spent five
>> minutes with the Chicago Manual or Words into Type. "--" is what
>> typewriters used for the em-dash. It didn't exist before typewriters,
>> and it has no reason to exist now, when every computer and most
>> cellphones are capable of the em-dash.
>>
>> *Since we're being persnickety, it's unclear why subjects end in
>> periods. They aren't sentences. Punctuation, like "--" and "." have
>> meanings. Misuse isn't a big deal, but it decreases confidence and
>> tires the eye.
>>
>> *2001- should be an en-dash. Okay, I'll stop.
>>
>> 10. "Browse catalog by name" works okay, but it's unclear why it gets
>> only one entry, and that's the author--who already got a link. Given
>> the term "browse" I'd think that the link would put me in the middle
>> of a millions-long list of books sorted by author. No. It does the
>> same thing as the "More by this author" link.
>>
>> 11. "MARC Display" is weird. But at least it's small. Now, onto the
>> main part of the page!
>>
>> ### MAIN PART
>>
>> 12. "Barack Obama : this improbable quest / John K. Wilson." Is weird
>> in at least four ways. Together they reinforce the impression that the
>> library catalog is arcane and fiddly.
>>
>> *The string "Title [slash] Author" is a library convention. In other
>> situations, title and author are distinguished either typographically
>> (as on a cover) or with the words "by."
>>
>> *In real life (except in France), book titles employ capital letters.
>> As I've said before on this list, when LibraryThing started showing
>> library titles, users complained that the site was "broken." Something
>> was causing book titles to lose their capitals. Funny? Alas, the jokes
>> on libraries.
>>
>> *In real life, colons don't have spaces before them.
>>
>> *In real life, author-title lists don't end in periods.
>>
>> 13. All text from this point goes underlined when rolled over. But
>> it's not clickable. This makes no sense at all. If LibraryThing did
>> this, I'd have ten bug-reports inside of a minute. I wonder if people
>> report this, or if the general atmosphere of brokeness prevents it.
>>
>> 14. "Publisher," "Boulder, CO : Paradigm Publishers, c2008." What a
>> peculiar string. The publisher is "Paradigm Publishers" but their
>> location is listed first? And why call it "Publisher" when it includes
>> publisher-town, publisher-state, publisher name, copyright symbol (in
>> case you thought it might be public domain?), and publication year.
>>
>> Order implies importance. On what planet is the publisher's location
>> the second-most important fact about this book?
>>
>> 15. "ISBN: 1594514763." Is this really the second-most important fact
>> about the book? To whom? I know it's shocking, but most readers don't
>> know what an
>> ISBN is. The rest don't care.
>>
>> And ISBN *might* be a useful way for a knowledgeable user to jump from
>> Amazon to a libray catalog. But they'd have to get the right edition.
>> The rest of the time, the ISBN is trivia for stockboys.
>>
>> 16. "Description: vi, 210 p. : ill. ; 24 cm." As others have said,
>> this is a meaningless jumble. It doesn't merit the title
>> "description." It's junk.
>>
>> The patron *might* want to know how long a book is--so "210 pages"
>> migtht be useful. I'd even be fine with "216 pages."
>>
>> The patron might also want to know that the book had photographs. It
>> would be better to know how many, or even to get a list of them.
>>
>> 24cm is wrong in about ten ways. First, although "the most European
>> city in America," Boston is still part of the USA. In the USA we use
>> inches, not centimeters. There's there's the issue of one measurement.
>> Is can't be width. Is it height? Width? Maybe it's like TV and
>> computer monitors. That must be it.
>>
>> 17. "Target audience: Adult." This is useful here. There are a lot of
>> kids books about Obama. I'm glad this isn't one of them.
>>
>> 18. "Summary." Fine, except for point six, above.
>>
>> 19. "Contents." Fine, except for point seven, above.
>>
>> 20. "Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index."
>> This is marginally useful. For "bibliographical references," I'd use
>> the plain-jane word "bibliography."
>>
>> It's funny that this is spelled out in prose but "ill." isn't. There's
>> probably some good reason.
>>
>> 21. The "Copy/Holdings information" box has some problems:
>>
>> *I'd love to be able to click on locations to find out where they are.
>> Although a long-time Boston resident, "O'Bryant School of Mathematics
>> and Science" means nothing to me. I guess I'll have to ask at the
>> desk.
>>
>> *The "Collection: Nonfiction" confuses me. I wasn't aware libraries
>> were divided that way. In fact, they aren't. But there probably is a
>> fiction section, that includes *most* of the fiction.
>>
>> *Capitalization is almost random. "14 day loan" but "In Library"? Why?
>> Or take the capitalization of the section header, "Copy/Holdings
>> information." The other place with a similarly-styled heading uses
>> title case, "Related Information." Small inconsistencies make a site
>> look sloppy.
>>
>> 22. The form below is literally backward. It's formatted like this:
>>
>> Format: ( ) HTML ( ) Plain text ( ) Delimited
>> Subject: __________________
>> Email to: __________________ [SEND]
>>
>> When I reach the third line, I gather it's an emailing form. Why
>> doesn't it look like almost all other email forms on the web--the ones
>> that START WITH THE EMAIL ADDRESS? Also:
>>
>> *Whoever designed this form didn't look at how you email things on any
>> other site! Do I need the subject field? If I do, why can't I write a
>> note.
>>
>> *What is "Delimited" anyway? I have no idea.
>>
>> *The form cuts off the title, into "Barack Obama : this improbable
>> quest / J". The form field allows only 40 characters, but is visually
>> larger. This is confusing and completely opposite how most web forms
>> work. Anyway, why are they only allowing 40 characters--bandwidth
>> costs?
>>
>> 23. "Next Reads." I gather Next Reads is much liked.[3] But this
>> "advertisment" feels intrusive and over-prominent. It certainly
>> doesn't fit in with the design at all. The line "Sign up for email
>> book suggestions in your favorite genre!" *may* relate to the icon
>> here, or it may not.
>>
>> 24. "Did you know? Many items held by the BPL are not listed in this
>> catalog. Find out about all of our catalogs."
>>
>> *This notice is not visually separated from the line above, about
>> NextReads. Are they all part of the same notice. All separate?
>>
>> *The notice is certainly unfortunate. If all their stuff isn't in the
>> catalog, they need something like this. But it certainly raises
>> doubts.
>>
>> ### Final Points
>>
>> 25. The design is unappealing and slapdash. Some examples:
>>
>> *The information architecture of the left-hand side is all weird. I've
>> mentioned the divet and the "--"s in the subject. But what about the
>> stray horizontal line in between "Table of Contents" and "More by this
>> a
>> uthor"? Is it necessary? Is it attractive? Did somebody's teenager
>> design this?
>>
>> *The "Add to My List" and "Hold this for me" buttons, although on the
>> far right, are somehow creating extra space between the book title and
>> its information. To an untrained user it's just another tiny mark of
>> inferior quality. To the trained web developer it's evidence that
>> someone doesn't understand floats.
>>
>> 25. Font sizes
>>
>> *The most important information--the book info and the holdings
>> info--are in the smallest fonts. That's crazy.
>>
>> *Apart from that, font sizes and styles are slapdash. The title of the
>> book is less prominent than "Related Information."
>>
>> 26. Accessibility
>>
>> *The page fails all levels of all accessibility tests. Five years ago,
>> when I made school software, I paid close attention accessibility.
>> Governments all require it. How did libraries get to opt out?
>>
>> *Test aside, nobody has looked at basic accessibility issues--semantic
>> coding, order of information, tab-order, alt-text, etc.
>>
>> 27. The great bullet problem
>>
>> Finally, as web developer I have to mention one thing that, when I
>> found it, made me laugh out loud--and I don't usually do that.
>>
>> The bullets on the left--the giant, ugly bullets that don't quite
>> align right--are not an unordered list (<ul><li>...</li></ul>, etc.).
>> They are instead a table, with two columns--someone's attempt to
>> produce a bulleted list, without using the HTML markup for... a
>> bulleted list!
>>
>> To get it, the list was "tableized." The left-hand column is for the
>> bullets. But instead of printing the unicode for a bullet, using a
>> graphic or wahtever, the left-hand column is comprised of
>> single-entry, no-content unordered lists. Apparently someone at
>> SirsiDynix thought that <li> </li> was a trick to get a bullet.
>>
>> [1] The BPL is having some sort of deep problem. Most of my searches
>> turn up page after page of blank records. This was the first non-blank
>> one.
>> [2] Not being "on the web" is, in my opinion, the single most
>> important factor that drags libraries down in the internet age, and
>> therefore a great threat to library success, library jobs and indeed
>> to education and democracy. But hey, what do I know? Maybe the rest of
>> the web is wrong and libraries are right!
>> [3] I don't know the product very well, but I am a fan of Novelist and
>> its people
>>
>>
>
>
Received on Mon Mar 16 2009 - 11:46:35 EDT
