KCLS Enhancements to Evergreen
Jed Moffit, Bill Erikson and Matt Carlson were up during our lunch to talk to us about the developments that were coming up from KCLS.
Jed says that we have to have something in the new developments that is better than ’sucks less technology.’ He is hoping that these developments will be genuinely of value to all of us.
Matt was up next and started with a history. He said that 2009 was the year of circulation and user interfaces. 2010 however is the year of Acquisitions, Cataloging, Serials and the OPAC.
First up was the patron registration screen. They pulled all the fields into one form so you can wo...
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What I Learned Today... - April 22, 2010 Author: Nicole Tags: Conferences/Presenting Evergreen evg10 open source libraries
dad using his library card
This is the second and last part of the Jessamyn’s Dad’s Library Card story. I went home yesterday. I got a phone call from my Dad.
Dad: So I clicked the link in that email the library sent?
Me: Yeah? Good.
Dad: It connects me to “iBistro on the go…” what is that?
Me: That’s the library’s online catalog. The library is supposed to type their name at the top there but it looks like they didn’t.
Dad: It’s hard to read.
Me: Yeah it sure is isn’t it? [explains how to make font bigger]
Dad: How do I look for a book, do I really have to log in first?
Me: You shouldnR...
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librarian.net - July 8, 2009 Author: jessamyn Tags: 'puters access library librarycatalog OPAC sirsi sirsidynix usability
Lastige materie: de toekomst van bibliotheekcatalogi
Afgelopen maandag was ik aanwezig bij een bijeenkomst over de toekomst van kunst- en museumbibliotheken. Die bijeenkomst werd georganiseerd door Ingressus, op verzoek van het Overleg Kunst(historische) Bibliotheken Nederland (OKBN)Ingressus nodigde mij uit omdat ik digitale vernieuwing een warm hart toedraag, niet omdat ik veel weet van kunstbibliotheken. Dat ik op voorhand niet veel wist van dergelijke bibliotheken maakte dat ik die ochtend het nodige leerde, met name van Anita Vriend, die werkzaam is in de bibliotheek van het Van Gogh Museum.Tijdens de bijeenkomst werd er ook discussie gevoerd over de toekomst van biblio...
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Digitaal Inlichtingenwerk Zeeuwse Bibliotheek - April 24, 2009 Tags: toekomst bibliotheekcatalogi kunstbibliotheken Paradise Lost Kurt de Belder David Weinberger OKBN Ingressus catalogus bibliotheken webOPAC museumbibliotheken
De bibliotheeksite van de toekomst
Gisteren was ik aanwezig bij een 'lunchbijeenkomst' over de strategie van de Zeeuwse Bibliotheek voor de periode 2009-2012. Ik leverde een korte bijdrage, met als belangrijkste punten:De steeds korter wordende aandachtsspanne van mensenHet niet kunnen 'winnen' van commerciële partijen als Google en het 'vaak achter de feiten aanlopen' van bibliothekenHet loslaten van het idee dat we met de huidige zoeksystemen ons publiek een goede dienst bewijzenCollecties onder de aandacht brengen door verhalen te vertellen en onze menselijke kant te tonenOm het verhaal te ondersteunen deelde ik de Trend Blend 2009 uit, alsmede een groo...
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Digitaal Inlichtingenwerk Zeeuwse Bibliotheek - March 3, 2009 Tags: databanken websites bibliotheken Steven Bell aandachtsspanne informatiegedrag Trend Blend 2009 toekomst websites bibliotheken
Your Opac Sucks, part n: users make end runs around your resource portal
If you go back far enough in time you start to hear a chorus of complaints about library web sites. I won't repeat them all now, but I will bring to your attention the latest salvo against library web design, this one from Inside Higher Ed entitled The Library Web Site of the Future from Steven J. Bell.According to the Ithaka report, academic librarians rated the function of the library as a gateway for locating scholarly information as “very important.” Asked to assess the performance of libraries as their portals to scholarly information, however, faculty in all disciplines rated them considerably differently. Comp...
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Superpatron - Friends of the Library, for the net - February 26, 2009 Author: Edward
JISC Developer Happiness Days (dev8D)
For my sins, I'm going to be facilitating the OPAC Community Meeting at the JISC Developer Happiness Days event in London next week.
Although we've got "OPAC" in the name, I think the session should include anything to do with library catalogues, library usage data, MARC records, federated search engines, revelancy ranking, facets, etc
We'd like to kick the session of with several "Minute Madness" talks. If you're considering coming along to the session, and you meet any of the following criteria, please add your name to wiki!
you've done something cool with your OPAC
you'...
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"Self-plagiarism is style" - February 4, 2009 Author: Dave Pattern Tags: misc
SLA 23 Things: Library 2.0
There’s been so much back-and-forth about Library 2.0 (whatever that is) that I find myself hesitant to write about it. To get myself started, I took a look at the Wikipedia entry for Library 2.0 and tried to apply it to my own library - which, admittedly, is a very specialized library, so my reactions in regard to libraries in general might be quite different. But the rest of the blogosphere has been kicking that can around for a long time already…
Here are what Wikipedia calls the key principles of Library 2.0:
“Browser + Web 2.0 Applications + Connectivity = Full-featured OPAC” - OK, you know wh...
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DIY Librarian - September 12, 2008 Author: Tara Tags: Library2.0 SLA23Things
NASIG 2008: Next Generation Library Automation - Its Impact on the Serials Community
Speaker: Marshall Breeding
Check & update your library’s record on lib-web-cats — Breeding uses this data to track the ILS and ERMS systems used by libraries world-wide.
The automation industry is consolidating, with several library products dropped or ceased to be supported. External financial investors are increasingly controlling the direction of the industry. And, the OPAC sucks. Libraries and users are continually frustrated with the products they are forced to use and are turning to open source solutions.
The innovation presented by automation companies falls below the expectations of libraries (not s...
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eclectic librarian - June 6, 2008 Author: Anna Tags: library nasig2008
TLA 2008 Conference Notes, Day 3: General Session II
The session, once they were done with the usual adminstrative stuff, was a panel on the topic of "Transforming Libraries."Moderator: Roy Tennant (OCLC)Speakers: Stephen Abram (SirsiDynix), Joseph Janes (University of Washington, I-School faculty), Karen Schneider (College Center for Automation, consultant, Tallahassee, Florida).(This was one of the highlights of the conference for me. It left me with a lot to think about, and I took a lot of notes. Since it was a debate, there is no handout, so I hope my small set of notes catches at least a small part of their thinking; this was very much in a rapid-fire style, so not eas...
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The Gypsy Librarian - April 28, 2008 Author: Angel, librarian and educator
CIL2008: WoePac to WowPac
Karen Schneider moderated this very interesting two part session on WoePac to WowPac - a look at OPACs as we know them and would like them to be. As a librarian who has often torn her hair out over the sad state - “or should I say sucky state” of our OPACs she’s the perfect person to be introducing the speakers for this session.
First off, Roy Tennant. Roy started off by saying “I’ve spent the last 10 years trying to kill off the the word OPAC - you can see how successful I’ve been.”
Roy wanted to clarify for us that when he talked about the “OPAC” he’s just talki...
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What I Learned Today... - April 14, 2008 Author: Nicole Tags: CIL2008 ILS OPAC cil08
CiL 2008: Catalog Effectiveness
Speaker: Rebekah Kilzer
The Ohio State University Libraries have used Google Analytics for assessing the use of the OPAC. It’s free for sites up to five million page views per month — OSU has 1-2 million page views per month. Libraries would want to use this because most integrated library systems offer little in the way of use statistics, and what they do have isn’t very… useful. You will need to add some code that will display on all OPAC pages.
Getting details about how users interact with your catalog can help with making decisions about enhancements. For example, knowing how many dial-up users ...
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eclectic librarian - April 8, 2008 Author: Anna Tags: library cil2008
CiL 2008: Woepac to Wowpac
Moderator: Karen G. Schneider - “You’re going to go un-suck your OPACs, right?”
Speaker: Roy Tennant
Tennant spent the last ten years trying to kill off the term OPAC.
The ILS is your back end system, which is different from the discovery system (doesn’t replace the ILS). Both of these systems can be locally configured or hosted elsewhere. Worldcat Local is a particular kind of discovery system that Tenant will talk about if he has time.
Traditionally, users would search the ILS to locate items, but now the discovery system will search the ILS and other sources and present it to the user in a less ...
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eclectic librarian - April 8, 2008 Author: Anna Tags: library cil2008
20080320 SOLINET: Bibliophiles and Social Networking Mashup
Kate Sheehan
the OPAC sucks
showed LibraryThing
Kate stalked Tim Spaulding in order to be the first beta tester of LibraryThing for Libraries
LfL takes all of the warm, fuzzy, reader-generated information about books and puts it into your catalog
showed a record with MARC info above and LfL info below on the screen
showed tag cloud
you end up clicking around from book to book in LibraryThing thinking “I want to read this, this, this, this, this”
when do people ever just hang out in your catalog?
LfL is great for reader’s advisory
showed the code side of it - it’s just 3 lines!
monkeys could do this ...
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The Shifted Librarian - March 20, 2008 Author: jenny Tags: precat
Uncontrolled Vocabulary, the Carnival, and the LC Working Group; or, the recognition of frustration
Back in December, a few days before the deadline passed for comments on the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, I wrote a post called just that.
In it I expressed much frustration; with both the big picture issues facing bibliographic control and those of my daily frustration in trying to use the tools my profession supplies me to do so.
I was popping off in that post. Clearly. Heck, I even tossed out an f-bomb. I was (am) mad.
Well, thanks to Anna Creech (or so I believe. By the way, thanks, Anna!) that post showed up both on Uncontrolled Vocabulary #24 [revisited momentarily in #25] ...
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Off the Mark - January 25, 2008 Author: Mark Tags: Work Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control Carnival of the Infosciences Classification Cataloging Librariana
Pre-WoGroFuBiCo Roundup
It came to my attention recently that not everyone — not even all librarians! — cares about bibliographic control. Yah boo sucks to them, says I. Today we expect the release of the Working Group on the Future of the Bibliographic Control’s draft report. While we wait, especially to see what they say about FRBR, FRAD, and RDA, I’ll clear out a backlog of recent links I haven’t mentioned. Get ready for the deluge, people.
ngc4lib threads mentioning FRBR: see “NGC4LIB evaluation?” and “Trouble with FRBR/RDA.”
From the web4lib archives, Lars Aronsson’s FRBR and Be...
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The FRBR Blog - November 30, 2007 Author: William Denton
Informatie 2007 - Dag 2
Vandaag zetel ik in het top-technologie-trends-panel op Informatie 2007 en doe aan live bloggen.
het is nu de avond ervoor en ik zal deze post morgen publiceren
Ik denk dat we met ons vijven wel een mooie verzameling van tien trends bij elkaar hebben gesprokkeld:
1. Draadloos netwerk in de bibliotheek
2. De attenderingsservice van I-City PBL
3. Blogs
4. Online communities
5. Del.icio.us new world: social bookmarking in de HOB
6. Goochelen met Google Books
7. OPAC sucks
8. Mashups
9. LibraryThing
10. The slow library movement
Die laatste vind ik een goede afsluiter. Ik had er tot voor kort nog niet van gehoord en het begrip...
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Commissaresse 2.0 - September 14, 2007 Author: de Commissaresse Tags: infiltratie
Your Opac and the Suck Factor
Note: over on Techsource, I wrote about open source OPACs this month — worth reading if you’re thinking about OPACs and such. Also see Marshall Breeding’s Library Technology Reports on Next-Generation Library Catalogs.
A week from Friday, I’m giving a talk in Illinois called “The OPAC sucks” at at the Symposium on the Future of Integrated Library Systems (yes, I’m getting a little tired of the “suck” meme, but it’s my fault for starting it).
I’d like your input.
Last year I discussed some of problems with OPACs in a three-part series for Techsource, in which...
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Free Range Librarian - September 5, 2007 Author: K.G. Schneider Tags: Hot Tech
The Next Generation [INSERT WORD HERE] Trend
All the talk about top library technology trends gets a geek thinking. Oh sure, there are the easy ones like the iPhone changing everything and more libraries embracing alternate worlds like Second Life, but what comes next? More importantly, what comes next when we look beyond the technology itself? Instead of focusing on tools like stone axes that we must master to sustain life, we are talking about tools that enhance and enrich communication. Or rather, we should be talking about communication that can be enhanced and enriched by new tools. Therefore, the next big trend in our use of technologies is probably going to be...
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Infomancy - June 19, 2007 Author: Christopher Harris Tags: futures infomancy
The Next Generation [INSERT WORD HERE] Trend
All the talk about top library technology trends gets a geek thinking. Oh sure, there are the easy ones like the iPhone changing everything and more libraries embracing alternate worlds like Second Life, but what comes next? More importantly, what comes next when we look beyond the technology itself? Instead of focusing on tools like stone axes that we must master to sustain life, we are talking about tools that enhance and enrich communication. Or rather, we should be talking about communication that can be enhanced and enriched by new tools. Therefore, the next big trend in our use of technologies is probably going to be...
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Infomancy - June 19, 2007 Author: Christopher Harris
SL2007: General Session
General SessionMonday, June 4, 2007Moderator:Eugenie Prime, Stephen Abram, Clifford LynchThis is all paraphrased.Q: How do we convince business leadership of the value of libraries?A: (EP) not ppt, statistics are necessary but not sufficient(SA) flow, talk ourselves up (why was the article hard to find, why do we think it will be the best, why is it important to read). Like the River with the Rock (like the Grand Canyon)Q: databases emerge across the enterprise, how do we provide access… federated search? (I think I got the gist of this one)A: (CL)Q: How can I make my OPAC not suck… I love my OPAC butA: (SA) like...
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Christina's LIS Rant - June 4, 2007 Tags: SLA2007
SL2007: General Session
General SessionMonday, June 4, 2007Moderator:Eugenie Prime, Stephen Abram, Clifford LynchThis is all paraphrased.Q: How do we convince business leadership of the value of libraries?A: (EP) not ppt, statistics are necessary but not sufficient(SA) flow, talk ourselves up (why was the article hard to find, why do we think it will be the best, why is it important to read). Like the River with the Rock (like the Grand Canyon)Q: databases emerge across the enterprise, how do we provide access… federated search? (I think I got the gist of this one)A: (CL)Q: How can I make my OPAC not suck… I love my OPAC butA: (SA) like...
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Christina's LIS Rant - June 4, 2007 Author: Christina
Opac and ILS
So pretty much everyone is convinced that their OPAC sucks. With the exception of the GA system, is there anyone out there actively trying to switch to Open Source?
I admit, I desperately want to give it a go, but it’s the backend stuff that gives me pause. I would be curious if others out there are tinkering, behind the scenes, out of sight. If so, let me know…
Library Issues, library2.0, OPACShare This
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Pattern Recognition - May 21, 2007 Author: Jason Griffey Tags: Library Issues library2.0 OPAC library-issues
20070517-02 David Isenberg
Comments on the Future of Technology
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Held up two pieces of fiber cable that sat in his drawer for 5 or 6 years
fiber to the library would enable virtual presence, super videoconferencing on gigabyte throughputs
if every library had fiber optic facilities coming to it, then communities would understand what big bandwidth applications are all about
What’s a gigabit? Enough throughput to carry more than 10,000 conversations. In the busy hour in telephony, you engineer your plan so that 10% of your phones will be off-hook at any given time. So a gigabit serves a city of 100,000 people. O...
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The Shifted Librarian - May 20, 2007
OPLIN 4cast #52
This week’s 4cast:
1. WorldCat Local’s Out of the Bag
OCLC has announced a new pilot service called WorldCat Local, which aims to integrate portions of the WorldCat service (and interface) into local library catalogs. Is the traditional OPAC on the way out?
More on the OCLC WorldCat Local Project (LibrarianInBlack)
WorldCat: Think locally, act globally (Thingology)
How WorldCat solves some problems and creates others (librarian.net)
More on Worldcat Local (Panlibus)
2. As the Social Network Turns…
The debate over the perceived dangers of social networking sites like MySpace seems to be taking a turn, as...
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The OPLIN 4cast - April 24, 2007 Author: OPLIN Managing Editor Tags: social network websites WorldCat Pew Internet Reports Windows Vista broadband WorldCat Local OCLC MySpace FCC Digital Divide
Unser eigener Opac: Library Thing & Co. in der New York Times
WHEN many people think of online social networking, they picture Web sites where the young and the restless discuss their love lives and their favorite bands. But Kathryn Havemann, 60, of Dayton, Ohio, has joined a different sort of Web-based network — one where people are linked by a more sedate interest: their book collections.
Die New York Times beschäftigt sich mit Library Thing und Kollegen: A Cozy Book Club, in a Virtual Reading Room
via librarytwopointzero
Sehr schön auch der dortige Leser-Kommentar:
The ease-of-use of LibraryThing absolutely spoils you for “normal” cataloging. The UI is not the only...
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IB Weblog - March 7, 2007 Author: Ben Tags: Presse Web 2.0 OPAC 2.0
People Are Doin’ It For Themselves
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Looks like I’m not the only one. Maybe it’s a (dare I use the word?) zeitgeist thing*.
On the very same day, Skagirlie laments that her OPAC sucks because it doesn’t do what Amazon, iTunes and LibraryThing do and Libraryman wonders why libraries don’t do what Pandora does. In the comments of her post, Maire says, “It’s just a bummer that a 3rd party has to offer something that should be intuitive.” I absolutely agree, it’s a bummer. Heck, I think it’s even worse than that.
On YouTube, people can upload and share their own vi...
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the goblin in the library - February 27, 2007 Author: josh Tags: libraries library 2.0 library users
Intermediate/Advanced LibWorm-Fu (Power Searching)
We’ll start with the radio buttons, then move on to search operators that LibWorm understands.
RADIO BUTTONS
There are three radio buttons beneath LibWorm’s search field, any words, all words, and exact phrase.
any words
By default, any words is selected when you first load the main page of LibWorm in your web browser. Having this radio button selected tells LibWorm that your search results must contain at least one of the words you’re searching for. With the search below, you’re telling LibWorm you’d like to see results that contain either OPAC or sucks.
all words
The all words radio butto...
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davidrothman.net - February 15, 2007 Author: David Rothman Tags: Technology Search How to LibWorm
zum Wochenende
Und jetzt alle:
the OPAC sucks, that’s all i gotta say
you’re outta luck if you can’t spell “Hemingway”
i’m getting bad results
don’t act like it’s my fault
Der Rest des Textes findet sich hier.
“The OPAC sucks”, präsentiert von den famosen anAACRonisms:
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netbib weblog - February 9, 2007 Author: ES Tags: Fun Bibliothek20
The Plight Of The Opac
The poor, sad OPAC is certainly suffering from a massive identity crisis currently. OPACs have taken quite a bit of heat and have many in the library world chanting the mantra “OPACs sucks” repeatedly. Personally, I think the discussion has been wonderful - and is the first step in what will probably be a long and drawn out process to overhaul our library systems. Today, Peter Bromberg joined in the recent discussions about how maybe it isn’t just the OPACs that we have problems with in a post comically titled Get your head out of your OPAC. In the post, he writes: “How does the quality of the OPAC ...
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Life as I Know It - January 11, 2007 Author: Jennifer Tags: OPACs
Get your head out of your Opac
So stipulated: Library OPACS, uh, lack the functionality we desire. We're all agreed. OPACS should be much, much better.Here's my question: How does the quality of the OPAC ultimately affect the total quality of customer experience and customer satisfaction? I think the answer to that question may be quite different from library to library, depending on the needs of our different user populations. Public library users may be more inclined to be browsers, and may not really care that much about how good the OPAC is. Academic, school and special library users may be more inclined to search for specific titles,...
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Library Garden - January 11, 2007 Author: Peter Bromberg Tags: OPAC Library as Place Customer Experience libraries
