dave pattern

12/June/2008

OPAC 2.0Teaching the Pig to Sing

Continuing impact of Web 2.0 on library catalogues

Dave Pattern, Library Systems ManagerUniversity of Huddersfield, UK

d.c.pattern@hud.ac.uk

preamble

• Presentation available at:– www.slideshare.net/daveyp

• Please remix and reuse this presentation!– creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-

sa/3.0

table of contents• Does your OPAC “suck”?• 2007 OPAC survey• Experiences at Huddersfield• Other libraries• Web services• OPAC 2.0

does your OPAC “suck”?

“The OPAC Sucks” song

The OPAC sucks, that's all I gotta sayYou're outta luck if you can't spell

“Hemingway”...The OPAC sucks, a sad calamityLike it's stuck in 8 million B.C.The title that I seekIs buried very deep

(lyrics by Brian Smith, Chicago Librarian)

2007 OPAC survey• On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 is

extremely unhappy and 10 is extremely happy), how happy are you with your OPAC?

5.1

2007 OPAC survey

• One criticism of OPACs is that they rarely have cutting edge features that our users expect from a modern web site.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how well do you think your OPAC meets the needs and expectations of your users?

4.5

the OPAC as a “pig”

• “After all, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still very much a pig.”

(Roy Tennant discussing library OPACs, Library Journal, 2005)

• “Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.”

(attrib. Robert Heinlein, author)

pig ugly?

“kissy, kissy?”

experiences at Huddersfield

• Definitely not OPAC 2.0• Enhancements to the existing OPAC

– user suggestions from surveys– “2.0” inspired features– borrowing good ideas from other web sites – new features launched with no/low publicity– “perpetual beta”

• Required staff buy-in and a willingness to experiment and take risks!

spell checker

• All OPAC keyword searches were monitored over a six month period

• Approx 23% of searches gave zero results– 74 people entered “renew” as a

keyword

• Users expect suggestions and prompts, not “dead end” pages

spell checker

keyword suggestions (1)

• Failed keyword searches are cross referenced with answers.com and Wikipedia to provide new search suggestions

keyword suggestions (2)

keyword suggestions (2)

• Is this suggestion inappropriate?

borrowing suggestions

personalised suggestions

ratings and comments

links to other editions

• Uses FRBR-like web services provided by OCLC and LibraryThing to locate other editions and related works within local holdings– www.oclc.org/research/projects/xisbn/– www.librarything.com/api

other editions

email alerts

RSS feeds

RSS feeds

keyword cloud

average feature usage per month (Apr/06-Apr/08)

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did you mean? also borrowed similar subject other editions

was it worth doing?

was it worth doing?

• 376 active email alerts• 113 active RSS feeds• 846 ratings• 53 comments• personalised suggestions

– 116 clicks per month (average)

• combined keyword suggestions – 753 clicks per month (average)

otherlibraries

Ann Arbor District Library

North Carolina State University

LibraryThing for Libraries

Plymouth State University

Topeka and Shawnee County

University of Warwick

Hennepin County Library

lipstick on the pig

“We need to focus more energy on important, systemic changes rather than cosmetic ones. If your system is more difficult to search and less effective than Amazon.com, then you have work to do.

After all, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still very much a pig.”

(Roy Tennant, Library Journal, 2005)

doing it yourself

• Encourage suggestions from staff• Include users in decision making

process• Encourage play and experimentation• Don’t be afraid to make mistakes!• Look widely for ideas• “Build crappy prototypes fast”• Monitor usage

– if usage is poor, rethink it or get rid of it

Open Source OPACs

• Scriblio– Plymouth State University– uses WordPress blog software

• VuFind– Falvey Memorial Library, Villanova

University– uses PHP & MySQL

• LibraryFind– Oregon State University Libraries– uses Ruby on Rails

Open Source OPACs

• fac-back-opac– Laurentian University Library– uses Lucene & Solr

• Project Blacklight– University of Virginia Libraries– uses Lucene & Solr

• Open Source LMS– Koha– Evergreen

VuFind

fac-back-opac

web services & APIs

• Talis Platform• LibraryThing

– thingISBN, thingTitle, thingLang, data feeds

• OCLC WorldCat Grid Services• Amazon Web Services

– recently rebranded as “Amazon Associates Web Service” with new conditions of use

• Google Book Search API

Amazon Associates Web Service

• Cover scans, reviews, recommendations, sales commission, etc

• Already used by many libraries• However, recent change to conditions of

use (19/Mar/2008) may preclude libraries:– 5.1.3. You are not permitted to use Amazon Associates Web

Service with any Application or for any use that does not have, as its principal purpose, driving traffic to the Amazon Website and driving sales of products and services on the Amazon Website.

(AWS Customer Agreement)

Google Book Search API

• Launched 13/Mar/2008• Typically client-side implementation

(rather than server-side)• Link to GBS content:

– via ISBN, LCCNs, and OCLC numbers– front cover thumnails– preview pages

the traditional vendors

• Talis Platform• Ex Libris “Primo”• Innovative Interfaces “Encore”• SirsiDynix “Enterprise”• Bowker “AquaBrowser”

Ex Libris “Primo”

Innovative Interfaces “Encore”

SirsiDynix “Enterprise”

Bowker “AquaBrowser”

play and experimentation

it’s okay to play!

• “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”– attrib: George Bernard Shaw

• 2007 Library & Information Show Workshop on Library 2.0 – Q: I don’t get paid to play, I get paid to

work– A: So, don’t call it “play”, call it

“professional development”

admit it, haven’t you wanted

to do this in your library…

Huddersfield Public Library

somewhere over the rainbow?

never judge a book by it’s cover

• “I borrowed a book 3 years ago that had an orange cover… can I borrow it again?”

Keyword search visualisations

eye candy

OPAC 2.0

OPAC 2.0

• “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

(Alan Kay, computer scientist and former Xerox PARC researcher)

• “The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.”

(William Gibson, science fiction authorand creator of the word “cyberspace”)

OPAC 2.0

• shopping list of features:– spell checking (“did you mean?”)– search all library resources (including e-

resources)– single search box (like Google)– relevancy ranking, search refining, and facets– manual recommendations (“best bets”)– automated suggestions (based on both global

and user-specific data)– user participation (“read-write OPAC” – tagging,

comments, reviews, etc)

OPAC 2.0

• shopping list of features:– improve serendipity– expose hidden links between items– APIs and Web Services to expose data– promote unintended uses– high degree of user personalisation– embed external data (e.g. Wikipedia,

LibraryThing)– foster communities of interest– RSS feeds and OpenSearch

2007 OPAC Survey – Features

• Please rate how important you feel the following features are to your users in a modern OPAC.– embedding the OPAC in external sites (e.g. portals) 8.7– “did you mean” spelling suggestions 8.6– enriched content (book covers, ToCs, etc) 8.4– RSS feeds (e.g. new books, searches, etc) 7.8– facetted browsing (e.g. like NCSU Library) 7.4– “people who borrowed this” suggestions 6.5– user tagging of items (i.e. folksonomy) 6.1– user added comments and reviews 6.0– personalised suggestions (e.g. like Amazon) 5.9– user added ratings for items 5.7

implementation of features

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already got getting soon importance

features – future trends?Rate of I ncrease of Feature I mplementation

72%

130%

28%

137%

311%279%

189%167%

500%

122%

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% increase in "getting soon" compared to "already got" importance

feature importanceFeature I mportance

8.7 8.6 8.4

7.87.4

6.56.1 6.1 6.0

5.7

9.18.8 8.8

8.48.9

7.8 8.0

7.4

8.7

7.0

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importance (all) importance (already got) importance (getting soon)

technology adoption lifecycle

technology adoption – 2007

technology adoption – now?

importance – UK respondents

8.6

8.17.8

7.2

6.5

5.95.7

5.45.8

5.3

8.7 8.88.6

7.97.7

6.7

6.2 6.26.0 5.9

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did yo

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UK respondents non-UK respondents

thank you!