Tim Spalding wrote:
> Pop-up survey? I killed that a few times, I recall. Surely it produces
> very skewed results. Online catalogs are like a drive-thru—by their
> very definition people are going somewhere and don't want to spend 20
> minutes filling out a form for no reason. Whatever responses you get
> are going to reflect that. In a drive-thru you'd probably get bored,
> lonely jobless people with time on their hands and nowhere to go. I
> can't imagine who'd fill out a survey on OCLC, but suspect it's not a
> typical group.
>
>
I think there's an inherent problem of surveying people who are using
the catalog about the catalog. We've created a tool where people can
find out what the library has by an author, with a title, or about a
subject (defined as LCSH), and then we survey them and find out that
they came to the catalog to find out what the library has.... etc. In
essence, the nature of the catalog determines what you can and cannot do
-- it's right there in the pulldowns on the advanced search page. Anyone
who uses a library catalog once learns what its limitations are, so if
they come back for seconds they pretty much know what to expect. The
"Perspectives" study, which wasn't limited to catalog users, showed that
something like 2% of people start their information seeking at a library
catalog, but a larger number end up using the library catalog when they
want to locate materials. So we can conclude that many of the people who
WERE so bored as to take OCLC's survey (I usually take surveys in order
to see what the company is trying to find out, BTW, and may have taken
OCLC's, but don't remember) had come to WorldCat expressly to locate a
copy of a book after doing research elsewhere. That's already a pretty
narrow and focused activity to be engaged in.
Weinheimer Jim wrote:
> I haven't read it all either, but one point (p. 60)
>
> "Subject Headings and Subject Information
> When end-user survey respondents selected “more subject information” as an
> enhancement priority, what did they mean? It is unlikely, given the relatively few
> unique subject-rich words contributed to a catalog description by controlled subject
> headings,9 that they mean more controlled subject headings. Given end-user survey
> respondents’ top choices for catalog enhancement and what end-user focus group
> participants reported, “more subject information” is more likely to be interpreted as
> subject-rich data elements not generally included in a standard catalog description."
>
> I don't know if I agree with the conclusion here. I think it would be just as likely that when people said they wanted "more subject information" it could be that they wanted more subjects to click on.
I often think back to the talk that Prof. Timothy Burke gave at the
first FoBC public meeting. (Which was video'd, but the video was never
released, unfortunately.) His main information need was to have
evaluative information about resources -- and evaluative in a particular
context. We've seen this on Amazon, on LibraryThing, and other sites:
users want to know: is this a good book, given my definition of good?
For Burke, good = authoritative. For others, good = beach read, or good
= if you liked x you'll like y. Readers can sometimes determine
"goodness" from a description or review, from the table of contents,
from the first chapter.
Library data is damnably neutral, perhaps for a good reason, but users
need help choosing and will not get it from the catalog. Our users are
unlikely to be in the library and even if they are many libraries don't
advertise 'readers' advisory' services so users don't know (if) they
exist. I can't imagine walking up to the reference desk and asking which
of the library's books on linguistics is 'better.' I don't think I'd get
a good answer. But here's what I can get on LT:
"Gives a good, broad, first overview of the field as well as closely
related fields. An excellent appetizer. Huge, with good references, good
index."
THAT'S useful to me. This, from the library catalog for the same book,
less so:
"Includes bibliographical references (p. 455-458) and index."
Elsewhere in the report users ask for summaries, abstracts, toc's... and
'more subject information' which, as Jim states, isn't defined. But my
guess is that what users want is more information that helps them decide
if it's a "good book".
kc
--
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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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Received on Wed Apr 22 2009 - 10:32:43 EDT