Select readings for a PALNI discussion about
"The Future of the OPAC"

-- February 2007 PALNI Board Meeting --

Link here to related discussion questions
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REQUIRED READINGS: (Yes, these will be on the test!):

1)
Morgan, E. L. (July 7, 2006). "Next generation" library catalog. http://dewey.library.nd.edu/morgan/ngc/#id3232112257
 

A sketch of the "NGC" (Next Generation Catalog) by one of the leading "think and doers" who now resides in our own state!

2)

Dempsey, L. (2006). The library catalogue in the new discovery environment: Some thoughts. [Electronic version]. Ariadne, (48) http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue48/dempsey/

These are reflections about the big picture together with key questions by a strategically positioned, provocative thinker and researcher whose ideas will quite likely contribute in a significant way to the shaping the future OPAC.

 

3)
Antelman, K., Lynema, E., & & Pace, A. K. (2006). Toward a twenty-first century library catalog. [Electronic version]. Information Technology & Libraries, 25(3), 128-139.  http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=22544647&site=ehost-live  (You may need to plug in the prefix from your "proxy server" – or simply retrieve it through a search in Professional Development Collection from INSPIRE.)

Focus in this article on the criteria it identifies that are required of the future OPAC together with related functionality and implications, rather than a review of Endeca's specific product.

4)

Kieft, R. (2006). Browsing library collections: From the shelf to the online catalog. [Electronic version]. EDUCAUSE Review, 41(3), 12-13.
http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm06/erm0636.asp OR http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=ERM0636 (pdf)

Explores ideas and issues surrounding enriching the OPAC.  The specific challenge for Kieft is how to find resources in new ways when you can’t browse the shelves.

SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS: (the stuff, as on a syllabus, you won't likely get to but makes the bibliographer feel good):

5)
Calhoun, K. (2006). The changing nature of the catalog and its integration with other discovery tools. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/calhoun-report-final.pdf

Perhaps more than you want or have time to read but at least see the brief executive summary.

6) Lewis, D. W.  (2007). A Model for Academic Libraries 2005 to 2025. Paper presented at ”Visions of Change,” California State University at Sacramento, January 26, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1805/665.

This is a late addition but a fine, thoughtful and readable piece by one of our Indiana colleagues (Dean of the University Library, IUPUI). While not focused specially on the OPAC, it addresses various issues and implications surrounding it.  Here is David's abstract to the paper:
 
The paper presents a model for academic libraries for the next 20 years. The parts of the model are: 1.) Complete the migration from print to electronic collections; 2.) Retire legacy print collections; 3.) Redevelop the library space; 4.) Reposition library and information tools, resources, and expertise, and 5.) Migrate the focus of collections from purchasing materials to curating content. The interactions of the parts of the model and organizational issues.

7)  Breeding, Marshall.  The Millennial Generation Joins the Library Community.  Paper presented at "Managing Electronic Collections: Strategies from Content to User" Denver, Colorado, Sept 28, 2006.  http://www.niso.org/presentations/MEC06-01-Breeding.pdf

This is a PowerPoint that provides background on "millennial" users -- their characteristics and expectations.  Breeding goes on to identify attributes that should be part of the next generation catalog (and other library discovery tools) with an eye toward collection development and resource access.

8)
Schneider, K. G. (10/03/2006). Toward the next gen catalog. Message posted to http://www.techsource.ala.org/blog/2006/10/toward-the-next-gen-catalog.html

A survey of sorts that mentions several leading voices in the conversation about the future OPAC and cites some "experiments."

9)  (For those who  need something more for that new media player you got for Christmas!)

Library 2.0 Gang. (March 2, 2006). The library 2.0 gang consider the future of the OPAC from http://talk.talis.com/archives/twt20060410-L2Gang-OPACFutures.mp3   [Will require an .mp3-capable media player – PC or a portable to which you can port the .mp3.]
 

This is a discussion by seven participants who are steeped in future OPAC interests.

EXTRA CREDIT THAT YOU’LL REALLY EARN:  For those who want to explore the future of cataloging
   in relationship to the OPAC, etc.:

10)
Byrd, J., Charbonneau, G., Charbonneau, M., & others. A white paper on the future of cataloging at Indiana University. January 15, 2006. Indiana University Libraries.  http://www.iub.edu/~libtserv/pub/Future_of_Cataloging_White_Paper.pdf

I think this is worth reading – especially for those of us who aren't even "closet" catalogers.  It makes a good case for one of our distinctive, professional contributions -- and responsibilities.

11)
Marcum, D. B. (2005). The future of cataloging: Address to the Ebsco Leadership Seminar, Boston, Massachusetts, January 16, 2005 from http://www.loc.gov/library/reports/CatalogingSpeech.pdf

I appreciated her example: "Let us suppose that you are a librarian at a small college near the middle of the continental United States." More may be better, but how do we get to the "right stuff"?  Do the "rules" of cataloging need to change, are they changing, and who changes them?
 

 

12)  Coyle, Karen. Hillman, Diane (2007). Resource Description and Access (RDA): Cataloging Rules for the 20th Century.  D-Lib Magazine, 13(1/2). [Electronic version.]

http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january07/coyle/01coyle.html

The "the times they are a-changin'" and the cataloging "rule-makers" better get on board.  This very recent piece is a call to rethinking and rewriting the rules now if libraries are to remain competitive and regain some ground lost to  "(...wealthier) purveyors of digital information delivery services."  It also provides a good historical framework from which the authors develop their challenge.

Questions for the PALNI Discussion on the Future of the OPAC

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

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After reading some of the articles on the list, you may be shaking your head over the complexity of the issues and technologies; or, finding yourself calculating how early you can retire.  For those of us who live with the daily concerns of budgets, buildings and business at hand the discussion about OPAC/catalog evolution (or revolution) seems rather daunting and perhaps even removed from where we live.  But, of course, it isn’t.  Much of the material addresses technical issues that are in some ways beyond our abilities to fully understand much less change -- like whether LCSH lives or dies and translating MARC to XML.  That’s to be expected and okay.  There still are questions and issues with which we need to wrestle that affect not only the direction PALNI takes but the kind of leadership we provide in our individual libraries and institutions.  The questions below are of the “big” variety – more on issues than practical implications but that’s where we need to start.

Our conversation next Tuesday likely will raise more questions than answers, as do the readings, but will give us a concerted time to consider some of these issues for the present and future of PALNI, our home libraries, and even librarianship as a whole.

We live in a remarkable age of “information resources” with all of the powerful discovery tools that already exist.  (See the three examples and sample searches that follow the questions.)  How do we align, complement, combine or reinvent our library OPAC/catalog(s) for greater effectiveness in discovery and access?  It’s not something most (or any) of us can do alone.  The dynamic information milieu presents challenges, possibilities, and changes for consortia.  As more than one author notes, the need for cooperation and collaboration has never been greater.  At least we’re in this together!

 

The changing(ed) environment

1)

Consider this statement: A library catalog has always been a means to an end.  This means must change dramatically and soon if the end -- libraries connecting users with information resources -- is to persist viably and successfully and not be circumvented by competing discovery tools and access services.

To what extent do you agree with this statement?  Do you think that there is such a sense of urgency?

2)

To quote from Calhoun (36-37), “the most recent OCLC report presents compelling evidence that college students begin looking for information on search engines -- 89% of this group said that they begin searches with a search engine vs. 2% who start their searches on library Web pages.”

How do we address the demand for "instant gratification" (arguably a pervasive perspective in general across our contemporary society) by providing more substantive information resources with which to gratify (and satisfy) the user?

3)  To what extent do you agree with the notion that (to adapt from Kieft) the library catalog as a discovery or browsing mechanism with its focus upon the local collection will cease to have a viable future in an age of Web browsers and immediate access to information?

The purpose of the OPAC: putting first things first

1)  Would you agree that a (re-)consideration and refashioning of the OPAC/catalog is one of the most important challenges facing libraries and librarianship?

2)  More than one author suggests that in the past (and continuing to the present) libraries placed too much emphasis on information sources and systems and not enough on users.  How is this orientation transferred to the library catalog and what must be done to reorient it?

3) Here is a quote from one of Calhoun's interviewees: "users don't get the idea of the catalog; they just want results."  If this is true, how does it shape our priorities in cataloging and the catalog as a discovery tool?

(Consider the "Principle of Least Effort" -- people aren't going to expend effort to find "better" information when they can they get something for less effort -- even when that something may be of lesser quality or relevance to their information need.)

Characteristics of a “Next Generation OPAC”

1) What does Morgan mean by a "silo" system -- and how are our traditional "catalogs" and "databases" like silos?  How are the results of a web-browser search less like a “silo”?

2) How does the "abundance" of information resources today drive new thinking about the OPAC?

3)  Our colleague, David Lewis, Dean of the IUPUI Library recently wrote (http://tinyurl.com/38wgsh)
 

Both students and faculty will use the general Web search engines as their primary discovery tools.  Library tools, resources, and expertise need to be where the users are.  The simply truth is: if you can't get to the library from Google, you won't go there.  Libraries need to use linking strategies to make this simple and easy.  It should also be transparent.

“Why can't the library catalog be more like Amazon.com [or can it]?”  What lies behind this question?  How have Amazon.com and Google (etc.) dramatically changed user expectations in search and access?

Implications for consortia – and PALNI, in particular

1)

Enough with the demands for customization!  We need to develop more parallel even replicated work flows to get on with addressing the larger challenges. We need to get over our resistance to changing “the way we do it here” when it diverts energies and retards progress toward more important ends.

 
To what extent do you agree with this perspective?   If adopted what are some of the implications that it may hold for PALNI?

2) Is it important to distinguish the OPAC/catalog from the ILS?   How might our expectations and requirements for ILS functionality be different in the future?  What are possible implications for PALNI?

3)  What does Dempsey mean when he says that the collection is much larger than the "local cataloged collection”?  Has PALNI practically thought much beyond the “local cataloged collection” – even our “collections” in aggregate?  What are some possible implications of such thinking for PALNI?

 
Bringing the issues down to Earth – or to our respective libraries

1) As the “next generation catalog’s” reach and delivery go well beyond our local collections and even PALNI, can we justify the need to customize capabilities and services for our local contexts – including a customization of the next generation catalog?  What are some of the criteria we might employ to rationalize and prioritize local, contextual customization?

2) Should we do any local cataloging of any item for which we can obtain cataloging copy from another library or an external source? How does this relate to the suggestion to "simplify the catalog record?"  (Should PALNI libraries do any local cataloging?  Should PALNI consider centralized technical services that create “simplified” records which are enriched for new resource discovery tools?)

3) In light of information abundance, what are the implications for libraries in terms of traditional functions: collection, organization, dissemination, and preservation? 

How do these traditional functions compare to the processes that Dempsey suggests: discover, locate, request, deliver?  What will it mean for us to put greater emphasis on Dempsey’s processes?  What are the things we continue to do locally (and in PALNI) that should be curtailed – since we can’t do everything?

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Here are a few examples to try to give a picture of some of the things talked about in the readings.  What are some of the enhanced capabilities?

a) WorldCat.org  Sample search: http://tinyurl.com/2sem42

b) Google Scholar: Sample search: http://tinyurl.com/2mua44

c) NCSU Endeca:  Sample search: http://tinyurl.com/2wxoht

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D. Bowell

February 2007