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Questions for the PALNI Discussion on
the Future of the OPAC
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
________________________________
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?
_______________________________
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
_____________
D. Bowell
February 2007 |
