Re: Searching

It's no mystery why.  Because there are better discovery tools than our library catalogs, in part because our catalogs simply haven't kept up with the state of the art. They're not very good. 

But there's nothing wrong with users using external discovery tools too, that's good for users that there's other good stuff out there. 

I think tools like LibX are _extremely_ important to help users access library services that they do need even when they're using third party discovery tools. 

And, I'm biased, but I think the Umlaut "link resolver plus" software is extremely important to give a good destination for a LibX (or similar) click into the library.    Imagine if you could simply do a mouse click on the catalog, and get a page that would show you availability in the catalog AND give you an auto-filled ILL form if we don't have it in the catalog. AND, as long as we're at it, give you other useful services you might be interested in, like search-inside-the-book from several vendors, and check for online fulltext access.  You can, with Umlaut!

Check it out:
http://findit.library.jhu.edu/go/1871218

Even better (but it takes library resources and workflow, not just technology), imagine if in one or two clicks from Amazon (or somewhere else), if the library DOES have it, a faculty member could get it delivered to their office in 24 hours via local document delivery.  That's my fantasy. 

Jonathan
________________________________________
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Ed Jones [ejones_at_NU.EDU]
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 7:45 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Searching

I didn't do this prior to LibX, which I guess you could view as a "personally disruptive technology" in my case.  It made a catalog "search" simply a question of a mouse-click on the ISBN on the source Web page, and successful retrieval simply a question of the presence of a related ISBN in the catalog record in the target OPAC.  It gave me pause.


-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries on behalf of B.G. Sloan
Sent: Wed 5/6/2009 3:39 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Searching


I've noticed this when talking with grad students and faculty. They don't use the catalog as a resource discovery tool. They tend to use the catalog to check the availabilty of an already known item: Does the library own it? If so, is it on the shelf? Heck, I do it myself, and my job used to entail working with online catalogs.

Granted, I'm not talking about a representative sample of catalog users, but it is pretty common for people I know (some who are quite familiar with how to use online catalogs) to use other tools for resource discovery and use the catalog just to check availability.

Bernie Sloan
SORA Associates
Bloomington, IN

--- On Wed, 5/6/09, Ed Jones <ejones_at_NU.EDU> wrote:

From: Ed Jones <ejones_at_NU.EDU>
Subject: [NGC4LIB] Searching
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2009, 5:37 PM

I'm going to make a confession here.  Typically when I'm looking for a
library book for my own use, I will search for it (via Google) in
Amazon.com or Google Book Search. Then when I find it--which I almost
invariably do--I click on its ISBN, an action which automatically
triggers a search (via LibX and xISBN) in the local National University
Library catalog for that edition and any closely related editions.
While this strategy doesn't work for older in-copyright books (or the
dwindling number of contemporary books published without ISBNs), it
works in an overwhelming number of cases.  So much so that it's become
my default search strategy.

Ed Jones
National University (San Diego, Calif.)