University of Texas Libraries

I will be the first to admit, I really hate the UT Libraries OPAC. From my first moments using it, I found it to be difficult to navigate, counter intuitive, and full of features I couldn't get to work properly. So I've taken this opportunity to channel my bias into what I hope is a more constructive review than my whining.

Despite it's title, the homepage for the libraries is actually just for UT Austin, not the entire system as far as I can tell. If there's a way to access sister schools directly, the link is well hidden. This is not really a big problem - Austin is certainly the flagship institution for the system, and general searches on Google for "UT" will lead one to the Austin homepage, not the system homepage. It's merely an example of the imprecision I find so objectionable about the whole library internet experience.

The UT OPAC has just as many features as any other university's. There are links on the main page for electronic reserves, for an ask a librarian instant messaging feature, for interlibrary loan requests, and of course to the library catalog itself. There's a news feed that gets it's own heading and a "featured resource" box highlighting a single feature that cycles through different articles when the page is refreshed. There are lovely pictures, and several links on the page will get you to the same place, in hopes, I think, that if one gets lost and confused, one can eventually find what one's looking for. The problem is getting to and using a lot of these resources.

The Library catalog does not have a quick search bar on the main page (only Google Scholar is afforded that honor,) but is accessible through two separate links. One is from the "Quicklinks" section, and the other from the drop down menu titled "Research Tools." In the past I have had trouble getting to the catalog, since "Research Tools" sounds like a good place to find more specialized resources, while the menu headed "Library Services" seemed to me to be a better place to have a catalog, and the text on the"Quicklinks" bar is smaller than any other link on the page and blends with the large picture next to it. Perhaps other people have been having my problem, since going to the home page now automatically opens the drop down menu for "Research Tools." The catalog itself functions very well, and like other online catalogs I've seen allows you to save searches, to search for similar entries by subject, and to view the MARC display for the selected entry.

In addition to the library catalog, the "Research Tools" menu allows you to access many other features, including an indispensable list of "Databases & Indexes to Articles" and a "Library Widgets" section, which has all the information about various library ad-ons a user can access, including NoodleBib citation manager and a Del.icio.us browser ad-on tool. It also includes a fairly prominent link labeled "Find an Article" which is perhaps the least useful function of any web page in history.

"Find an article" takes the user to MetaLib (trademark) something that claims to be able to quickly find an article using the keyword entered into the search field. There is even a button labeled "Go" which actually does absolutely nothing when pressed, other than inform the user that they need to select a "database set" from the options underneath the search bar. These database sets take one through another series of click-throughs, eventually resulting in the search page for an individual database, and not the results for any terms the user might have entered in the original search box. In order to actually get things to (sort of) work the way they appear to, one has to click on the little UT symbol that appears next to the database names, this will allow one to log in and search with the search bar. No explanation is given for this process. This makes the whole process unintuitive, annoying and completely superfluous, since one can access a much wider range of databases by using the "Databases & Indexes" option I mentioned earlier.

The other big problem the site has is the constant need to enter and reenter a UTdirect id and password when accessing the site from off campus. This makes a certain amount of sense for accessing electronic resources, which are subject to copyright, but makes considerably less sense when accessing the "IM a Librarian" feature. While this is not a public library, it seems incredible to me that they would ban the public from asking questions of the librarians, especially since it's possible for nearly anyone to contact the library staff via email, and of course in person.

I have successfully used this OPAC on many, many occasions, often from off campus. But it has nearly always seemed to me to be far more trouble than it should be, and often a complete failure from a usability standpoint. I understand that this is a fairly new redesign of the site, but I trust I'm not alone in thinking they could have done more user testing prior to it's release. Surely I'm not the only person that accesses it from home and not a school computer.