OPAC 2.0

supporting library users

Dave Pattern, Library Systems ManagerUniversity of Huddersfield

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

contents• Does your OPAC “suck”?• 2007 OPAC survey• Experiences at Huddersfield• Other libraries• Open Source and commercial

products• Web services• OPAC 2.0

does your OPAC “suck”?

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 the OPAC, 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?”

experiencesat

Huddersfield

background

• General unhappiness with vendor product

• “In-house” 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 to provide new search suggestions

keyword suggestions (2)

keyword cloud

borrowing suggestions

personalised suggestions

ratings and comments

other editions

• Uses 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

RSS feeds

Google Book Search

shelf browser

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?

• 421 active email alerts• 167 active RSS feeds• 1,102 ratings• 72 comments• personalised suggestions

– 116 clicks per month (average)

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

otherlibraries

Ann Arbor District Library

Darien Public 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

• The Social OPAC– Darien Library (John Blyberg)

Open Source OPACs

• Open Source Library Management Systems– Koha– Evergreen

VuFind

fac-back-opac

the traditional vendors

• Talis Platform• Ex Libris “Primo”• Innovative Interfaces “Encore”• SirsiDynix “Enterprise”• Bowker “AquaBrowser” (UK)• DS “DSArena”

web services

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 (March 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 March 2008• Typically client-side implementation

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

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

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 (inc. e-resources) – 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”)– foster communities of interest

OPAC 2.0

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

LibraryThing)– 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

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

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

technology adoption lifecycle

technology adoption – Q1 08?

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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UK respondents non-UK respondents

thank you!

www.slideshare.net/daveyp/