Central Rappahannock Regional Library

Let’s take a look at Central Rappahannock Regional Library’s OPAC this week.

I am impressed by the clarity of the basic search page of the catalog. Select the index, enter the keywords, and hit “GO”. As simple as Google. As most OPAC, it provides the advanced/power search with Boolean feature. Users could refine the search by selecting a limit or sort option. The limits include age group, format, language, location, etc. Think about these scenarios: a Mom is looking for readings for his 5th grade son; a young man is looking for a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and he wants the book instead of the DVD; An old lady is checking if they have a copy of Pride and Prejudice in the branch which is only five minutes away from her home. I can see how handy this feature is as these scenarios go further. In addition, it seems like users can apply the Boolean algorithm to the limits they select. However, some terms in the dropdown list such as ilang and ilimit are confusing to me and I failed to figure out how it worked.
The result page of search has nothing new. Users can sort the results by publish date, author, title, etc. and refine the results by selecting a limit.
The item page not only contains the basic information about the item the user selects such as title, author, availability, etc. but also provides related information or hyperlinks which facilitate the use of the library catalog or even the use of the whole Web. I am glad to see they incorporate the review of the item. Even though I did not find a lot of them, it was a great start at least. I later found they had initiated user reviews and ratings in the Reading Room and I was wondering if they could integrate them into the catalog. Users can also browse all items in the catalog by the same author, sharing the same subject, or sharing keywords in the title (such as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Harry Potter and the goblet of fire). They also have the link to the Google pages with results by searching terms related to the current item such as the author and the subject matter. Amazon and Barnes and Noble are linked too, however, I found some of pages were expired.
In addition to search, they also support bestseller browse. Bestsellers are grouped by formats (audiobook, DVD…), authorities who rank them (New York Times, Washington Post…), and time periods. Some of the lists are not self-explanatory though such as “Selected newly received titles”.
In conclusion the CRRC OPAC is satisfactory to me. It provides the users with flexible ways to search and browse the catalog and encourages users to explore outside the library in the whole Web. However, I may suggest that (1) they check the links regularly and get rid of dead ends; (2) refine the labels/words they use in the catalog, making them more self-explanatory.

How can I recycle this?

I recently discovered RecycleThis, a site which posts ideas about how to recycle common objects which seem useless. The site began 2 years ago with a post about the uses of pistachio shells. So far, the site lists potential uses for about 300 items and the authors have received over 3000 suggestions for future posts. Three times a week one of the two authors posts a blurb about a new item and then lets anyone comment on potential uses of the item in question. The responses often involve using items for crafts or gardening but sometimes have more utilitarian suggestions as well.

At this point I think the concept is stronger than the actual site. It seems like more features could be added to make it easier to use. For instance, there’s not a simple index of items discussed. Instead, the site’s archives breaks down the content by month and category (e.g. “technology,” “food and the like,” “sports” etc). But after selecting one of the categories users are directed to the actual posts listed in chronological order and not a list of items. The site also features a search function but because there are no tags for posts it is not as effective as it might be otherwise.

There are some especially cool features of the site. First of all, the site is produced and hosted using Free and Open Source software exclusively. What’s more, the authors take most of the photos themselves and post them as Creative Commons (Attribution) License on Flickr. When this isn’t possible, they use free stock photos from Stock.xchng.

I think the community and green-centered aspects of this site are what make it especially interesting. Using free and open source software adds to the appeal but they are also just trying to start a dialogue about living green and thinking of creative solutions to common problems.

Ann Arbor District Library

Ann Arbor District Library OPAC is my choice for this week's delightful OPAC tour. Unlike any other OPAC I have previously examined, what really caught my eyes is the library OPAC in several different languages (i.e., Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, etc). Since my mother tongue is Korean, I clicked "Korean" and the translation brilliantly offers the OPAC in Korean. I was very pleased to read the OPAC in Korean, which seems to serve the population of that language group its purpose very well. Besides, the library seems to actively engage its diverse population within the community with a variety of activities as well. The main page of the AADL provides the information on the featured communal events such as inviting the folks for movies, games, social issues, etc.

The main menus conveniently located right below the library banner image consist of the main page (about us), catalog, events, services, research, contact us, and my account. My primary interest was in the library catalog that I clicked the catalog. Users can search items by keywords, title, author, and subject as well as by location meaning different branches, all age groups, and any material type meaning formats (i.e., book on CD, book on Tape, DVD, VHS, etc). The OPAC also provides the convenient way to browsing catalog by listing "types" under three different lists such as new items, hot items, and by media. In terms of the top 10 tags, the list goes on as follows: 1. Fiction 2. Science Fiction 3. Animie 4. Fantasy 5. Cooking 6. Manga 7. Recipes 8. rap 9. rock 10. comedy. Clicking "fiction" directed me to another page that lists a large number of books; each book was tagged by users.

The most user-friendly, third-order of order way of accommodating users' needs was the several blogs (i.e., audio blog, books blog, and video blog) listed on the left column and three different top 10 tags with which the folks seem to label their interests. I was very curious of audio blog and chose to see what it looks like. The blog was made up of the image jacket of each CD and brief introduction to its music, singers, and interesting scoop of information pertaining to surrounding influence or historical facts relevant to the band, group, or individual singer. Users can post comments by logging in or registering.

Just briefly examining the intriguing aspects of the OPAC, I came to realize the library has been actively engaging e-users who appear to be actively tagging items, posting comments, and sharing information over all. I am not sure whether I should be happy or astonished with the rapid change that the library OPAC is evolving into. One thing for sure though is the library is not what it used to be. Its system is not built only by informational specialists but also by users themselves as it involves the third order of order in the digital (virtual space) library. The AADL users are not just browsing and searching information but also classifying and sharing.

LibraryThing

Most people, when they find out how much I love books and to read, immediately ask me if I’m on LibraryThing.  They are usually surprised and disappointed when I reply that I’m not, and then recommend it to me highly.  When I saw the site on our class list, I decided to explore it a bit and see what I thought of it.

First, some general comments that pertain to the site itself, though not necessarily to concepts we’ve discussed in class.  I spent a bit of time on the virtual tour of the website, as well as the quick introduction page.  Both of these were very helpful and useful.  They presented the site in its entirety, but in a simple, well laid-out way that was easy to follow and understand.  Also, I really like how easy it is to join and how little personal information is required—only a user name and a password.

I explored around the site and found that several other things caught my eye as particularly fun or interesting, like a picture of a stack of books labeled “MMMM....books” and the idea of the “UnSuggester,” which gives you recommendations of books you wouldn’t like to read.  That shows a great appreciation for both books and humor, which I liked immediately.

What surprised me was the social aspect of the website.  I had no idea that was such a big part of the site!  It’s like facebook or myspace, but it all revolves around books.  One of the main goals of the site is to connect people through books, which is awesome.  I always enjoy meeting and talking with people who like the same books as I do, and this site makes that really easy.  But, it’s also good that you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.  It seems like if you went into it full-on it would be overwhelming!  There are so many groups and forums and other things to participate in.  But, you can use the site for as little or as much as you want, which is really nice.

One thing did annoy me, though.  It calls itself a place to catalog your books, but it really isn’t cataloging.  It’s copy cataloging.  As far as I can tell, the user doesn’t do any cataloging himself, except for tags.  You can’t use it to create your own call numbers, just import them from LC and Dewey.  I think it would be much more fun if you could actually use the site to invent your own cataloging system.  This would also help rectify another (though minor) complaint I had: there’s no locative function.  There’s no way to indicate a book’s physical location in your collection.  So, you might know you have the book, because it’s on your list on your computer, but you still don’t know where it is in your house.  I guess the user could solve this himself by indicating his books’ locations in the comments field of the library display, but that could be confusing to other viewers of the library if the user had his settings on public.

Overall, I seemed to remain unmoved on the first run-through.  I just don’t think I need it.  I basically know what books I have, and I’ve never been that dependent on others’ recommendations.  I can find what books I want to read on my own.  I don’t need to spend any more time online, either, or talking with people that I don’t really know.  Sure, it’s fun to browse tags and people’s collections, but only if I was really looking for something, I think.  I did join (BatgirlTheLibrarian), but I’m not sure how much I’ll use it.  I might like it more as I get into it.  If I have any time to play with it, that is!  But I don’t feel much of a need to use it diligently.

The more I thought about the underlying concepts behind this website, though, the more I began to see its strengths and true innovations.  At first glance it can just seem to be a cool, fun thing to do online, but it really deals with much bigger issues and concepts, even some of those that we’ve discussed in class.  (Though the high number of librarians using the site should have been a tip-off from the very beginning.)

For example, in the about page, there’s a section on concepts that discusses what exactly constitutes a work.  It takes into consideration variations in titles, different editions, translations, etc.  On each book’s page, furthermore, there is a list of related works, such as sequels, and other versions.  Well, this is FRBR at work and no mistake!  It was really neat to see something that we had just discussed as a theory put into practice and obviously be a success.

Besides that, the whole idea of the site is really innovative and tackles the exact same debate we’ve been having in class of top-down versus bottom-up categorization of information, resolving the debate seamlessly by combining the best of both worlds.  It takes the reliability and structure of the Library of Congress (and many other libraries across the world) that has been trusted, used, and helpful to many generations of readers, and combines that with the cooperation, egalitarianism, and social aspects of the internet culture that is so popular today.  It is, in a way, the über-catalog, and the way things should be, in my opinion.  It’s not a total free-for-all, which can get messy and annoying, but not controlled by just a select few.  Plus, it has, as stated on the site itself, no goal of selling books, just loving them.  It takes the structure and no-cost idea of a library catalog and combines it with the user-review principle of amazon.  It combines the best of each way and, most likely, is the best way for finding information about books.  And that’s really the whole point, isn’t it? 

After consideration of the underlying idea of LibraryThing, and not just its implementation, I think it’s something that I can get behind.  I might not use it all that much, but I think it’s a really great idea.  (I think the UT library should link to it instead of amazon for summaries and reviews, but that’s a different rant.)  The only thing that still annoys me a little is the social networking aspect of it.  Can’t it just be about the books?  But, as I thought about it more, I had the strange thought that it was the books that were doing the social networking and the people are just following them around.  Each book kind of has a profile page and collects friends, like on facebook or myspace.  So, in that case, the social networking is essential and even makes the books come alive.

But that might be taking it a bit too far.

Austin Public Library-Austin, MN

Every time I want to go to the Austin Public Library website and I type my request into google the website for the public library for Austin, Minnesota is one of the first on the list. So I decided to do something useful with the website and evaluate it’s OPAC.
If the website is anything to go by this is a library that has integrated itself very thoroughly into the community. This website contains pages for Live Homework Help for school children, computer classes, e-audiobooks that can be downloaded at home, genealogy sites and databases that allow access to census reports back to 1790, the library will even put together travel kits designed to keep a child busy during long trips. It is very user-oriented.
This is a library that is adapting to the needs of its community. It has recognized that many people would rather do their research online and is providing the means to do it. The main focus of the website is not on the catalogue, but on the other services the library can offer. These services are not limited to those who physically go to the library; all of these can be accessed online as long as the user has a library card. All he/she needs to do is type in their barcode.
Obviously I could not gain access to the databases and explore because I do not have a library card, but each of the databases had a short blurb explaining it’s focus and who might find a particular database useful. For example, “Price It!” can be used by collectors to estimate values of pieces of art, etc. or “Issues and Controversies” may be useful to researching students or current events readers since it provides in-depth information on a multitude of hot topics presently being debated.
One of the things that I do not like about this site is the tab menu down the left side of the page. Some of the labels do not adequately describe the service being offered. For example, one tab is labeled “Programs.” This leads to a page offering to provide travel kits for those with children who are going to be traveling in the near future. Why is this under “Programs” and not under the tab “Services” which is also present on the lefthand menu? Also, when a user clicks on a particular link on the left side, that link disappears from the menu once that page has been downloaded.
In my opinion the OPAC is not nearly as impressive and user friendly as the rest of the website. When a user first clicks on the “Catalog” tab two boxes come up: one of them is the standard drop down menu of “Subject Keyword,” “Author Keyword,” “Title Keyword,” etc. And the other box allows a person to type in the information. From this first page there is no way to further refine the search. Once you begin your search you can sort the results by publication date, author, or title and you can limit the results to a certain type of material (books, large print, DVD, etc.) but there is not even an extra box provided for a more detailed search with multiple variables of subject, author, title, etc.
However this OPAC does have one feature that I really like. It allows the user to email oneself a citation of the search results. At the bottom of the page the user can select which search results to email and the user can even select the style of the citation (MLA, Chicago, etc.).

Fairfax County Public Library

I chose to evaluate the Fairfax County Public Library website because my friend from high school who lives in Virginia recommended their website to me. She, though not a library student, uses it often, especially their downloadable audiobooks, an application that I am finding increasingly in OPACs. The opening page is straightforward and professional. There are many links to How Tos and Contact Information, even a direct link to Homework Help. I found the page easy to navigate and briefly looked over the various features and applications, such as a Genealogy and History page. I then browsed their OPAC as a guest.

The OPAC (I would put a link here, but I don't think it would work directly; I think you need to go through the Guest link) has a clear organization of search options in well-defined buttons and links without being too confusing. Below the search box were several links to Recommended Reading lists that were based upon awards (Nebula, Pulitzer, Agatha, etc) and best selling lists. The use of previously created lists made more sense to me than the lists found at the JoCo library OPAC that seemed a bit random.

The catalog searching features were fairly innovative; the system used eight search buttons (Words or phrase, Author, Title, Subject, Series, Periodical title, ISBN, Call number) instead of the usual pull-down lists and single search button. A “Power Search” link will take you to the more traditional pull-down lists of search specifications, but I really enjoyed the simplicity of using the direct search buttons. My test search was (as you can see in the picture) for Dickens' Bleak House. (Anyone notice that I'm a Dickens fan?) :) If I immediately hit ENTER after typing my search terms “bleak house” (as is natural for most Internet searchers), the terms automatically were considered keywords and nineteen results came up, only seven of which had anything to do with Dickens. But if I clicked on the Title button with the mouse, I was able to get back only the entries related to the Dickens novel. There is also a Search Within Results option that allows you to specify (this is really cool) the material, from audio to motion picture to boardbook, paperback, or hardcover! The specific capabilities of the search engine were surprising to me; after all, I chose this OPAC rather randomly on the recommendation of a friend, not because of rave reviews of others.

In general, the OPAC was simple and effective for an efficient browsing or searching experience, even for new users. The use of direct search buttons to specify a search was new to me, and I appreciated the efficiency of the approach. I believe this is a great OPAC for a public library.

University of Michigan Library System

The University of Michigan Library system consists of 19 libraries on campus. These 19 libraries are served by the University's MIRLYN catalog, which also includes catalogs for the Bentley Historical Lirary, William L. Clements LIbrary, and Frances Wilson Thompson Library located in Flint, MI.

The main library page includes a comprehensive amount of information which tends to make the site appear a little cluttered. That being said, the OPAC search box is easy to distinguish and allows users to search the catalog, find a database or e-journal, or search library web pages. The OPAC is also accessible via the main page's Resources section, which include links to articles and databases search tools, e-journals and newspapers, research guides, information on managing citations and bibliographies, and more. Also available on the main page is a "find articles" drop down box listing ten categories and a keyword search box, from which users can search for articles.

Other main page features include: a Campus Quicklinks dropdown box, allowing users the ability to navigate quickly navigate to other ares of the University; general library information and services (hours, locations, circulation policies, ILL, course reserves, workshops, etc.), and; information for undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff, alumni, retired faculty and staff, persons with disabilities, library colleagues, and visitors. I found it incredibly useful to include on the main page a link to the library's subject specialists, along with the links in the the "I Need to Find" section, which, among other library service found elsewhere on the page, offers basic assistance on how to find books and articles, how to use and search databases, and how to search for newly cataloged items in all University libraries. Newly cataloged items include items cataloged in the last four weeks, and users may limit their search by library, subject category, or call number. Another useful feature is the MLibrary Labs, which showcases unique and useful library tools for users. These include RSS feeds, iGoogle Gadget, Interactive Maps to UM Libraries, New and Updated Facebook Applications, Search Plug-Ins for Firefox and Internet Explorer, Mirlyn Search for Facebook, LibX Toolbar, and WorldCat Search.

The library employs an "Ask Us (Ask a Librarian)" feature along with Searchpath, a self-paced tutorial "designed as an introduction to research at the University Library." Both are accessed through the main page. Ask Us provides reference services via email, instant messaging, telephone, and in person. Searchpath includes tutorials for all manner of research needs, including topic selection, finding books and articles, using and evaluating the, citing sources, and researching subjects. RSS feeds are available for Library News and Events and Exhibits, both of which are featured on the main page, the the MLibrary Labs page, recently tagged items, and items tagged "library."

Searching through MIRLYN was fairly straightforward (title, author, subject, medical subject, journal/series, call number), though it also included a "begins with" option for most search fields. Advanced search options included keyword search throughout an entire record or by subject, title, author, medical subject, journal/serial, series, conference, publisher, and URL/web address. Otions for language, format, collection, location, and date range allowed for further refinement of results. I did a basic search for "faceted classification," which yielded 13 results. The default sorting option was by title, but I had the option to resort my results by author, format, and year. Icons indicated if a resource included a digital version or was found elsewhere on the web (usually via Google Books), and the catalog record for those items included links to both versions.

Each catalog record included a "tag this page" option via the University's MTagger tagging application. Clicking on the MTagger icon opens a popup window, in which users can tag the item with as many tags as they wants. Other users' tags will also be displayed in the window, and users can enter a personal description and/or title for the item for future user. Tag clouds appear in the footer of most MLibrary pages. Additionally, the library has enabled MTagger to tag pages from anywhere on the internet, and has made available an MTagger Browswer Bookmark.

The Electronic Journals & Newspapers List includes currently cataloged online (electronic) journals and newspapers, and is alphabetized by title and grouped by subject. A keyword search is available, and journals have also been cataloged in MIRLYN. The Search Tools: Articles & Databases section offers searching by keyword, but users must also choose one of eleven search sets (general interest, arts, business & economics, etc.). More in-depth research options are available, incorporating the full range of search features, databases, and subject categories.

Overall, I found the site easy to navigate and interesting to browse. Assistance is widely available throughout the site, and the tools and resources provided seem like they do a good job of serving user needs. The site offered a wealth of information to students, staff, researchers, and visitors, included a wide array of searching options, and incorporated some basic Web 2.0 features.

The Wikipedia Knowledge Dump

Nicholson Baker wrote a review about a book about Wikipedia. While I haven’t read the book, the review itself it pretty good. You can read part of it here. In it, he writes about his crusade to keep articles from being deleted due to lack of relevance, citations, etc. He remarks how easy it is to get an article deleted, and how often it happens. Near the end, he mentions that someone has suggested a wikimorgue, or wikipedia for deleted wikipedia entires. (The term was coined by K.G. Schneider, aka the Free Range Librarian.) It turns out that someone has been working on a proto-version of just such a thing for almost a year and a half.

The Wikidumper is a blog dedicated to wikipedia articles marked for deletion. The site, run by Dr. Cliff Pickover is a simple way to ensure that these pages are not lost forever. Given the noble cause of the work, it is unfortunate that the method is so unsatisfactory.

The site is a blogspot blog, and while blogspot makes it very easy for almost anyone to start their own blog (something of a good thing), the simplicity of such a site makes a terrible place to gather this kind of information.

It seems obvious, but it probably needs to be said anyway: wikis are not blogs. While a blog can be a great place for an author or authors to post short notes or thoughts or articles for the public, it lacks the capability for collaboration and searchability that make wikis a good encyclopedia format. The website itself consists mainly of one giant webpage that includes every single entry selected to be placed in the Wikidumper for the past seventeen months. Searching doesn’t give one the option of searching in titles or within articles.

Furthermore, the selection process is unsatisfactory. According to the site, “If your entry is about to be deleted from Wikipedia and sent to an early grave, give us the link. I’ll give you a second chance and consider making the entry immortal.” So this depends upon users to send links to proposed deletions.

There is nothing here that distinguishes from pages that have been deleted and pages that survived on Wikipedia. Having the former here is redundant. Further, it is not clear how many entries are on Wikidumper. As of 3pm on March 25, 2008, there are 557 pages marked for possible deletion on Wikipedia. Pages are listed by the date the deletion was suggested, so it is very easy to keep up with new pages. Given this, it would be relatively easy to create a proper wikimorgue for these pages.

* * *

If it can be agreed that a better solution is possible, perhaps the more important question would be, is such a solution necessary in the first place? As a student at a library school, I am going to skip most of the point-by-point explanation as to why it’s better to save than to delete. However, there are a couple of questions that I think don’t necessarily have simple answers.

I grant that one man’s trash is another’s treasure, I wonder what it says about the reputation of a resource that would allow any ten-year-old to post an article about themselves. Is it not better that Wikipedia require that there be some source that establishes the “importance” of the article?

Also, while Wikipedia claims to have an almost complete “bottom-up” structure, where anyone can create or edit articles, what does it mean that one of a select few editors can delete an article with almost no basis for doing so, besides a single complaint? (To be honest, this question is rigged. For more on how Wikipedia isn’t really a perfect bottom-up structure, see this Kevin Kelly article.)

Altogether, I would consider myself an inclusionist, and therefore think that the Wikidumper is a passable first step. Now what we need is a proper wikimorgue for this endeavor...

Degree Confluence Project

The Degree Confluence Project (DCP) was created by Alex Jarrett in 1996 aiming “providing an organized sampling of the world.” The word confluence is defined as “the exact spot where an integer degree of latitude and an integer degree of longitude meet
”, for example, 43º00’00”N 72º00’00”W. There are 64,442 confluences in the world, counting each pole as one intersection. Each confluence is further defined as primary confluence or secondary confluence. The precise definition could be found here: http://confluence.org/infoconf.php#types. A primary confluence, simply speaking, is a confluence from where discernable land could be seen on a clear day.

The collection contains photos, video, and text of contributors’ visits to confluences. Contributors are encouraged to revisit the confluences in order to document the changes at these locations over time. Until now, they’ve had 5327 successful primary confluences, 10425 visitors, and 72091 photographs in 177 countries.

Confluences are assigned to countries to facilitate browsing. Countries are listed on the homepage of the website and by clicking any one of them, one could get the general information of the country, some statistics of the visits to confluences in the country, a map of the country with all confluence in it, and a list of all confluences in the country with thumbnails and the degree of the confluence. One can access the confluence by clicking the confluence on the map or in the list.

In terms of search, one can (1) search a specific confluence with its degree; (2) search a visitor by first name, last name, or both which will return all the confluences he/she has visited; (3) let Google search the site; (4) search confluences using combination of multiple queries, such as rang of degrees, altitude, primary/secondary.

Each visited confluence has the information including the visitor, the date of visit, text description of the experience of the visit, photos or video taken from the confluence. Text descriptions have been found in different languages with English translations. At least 4 photos facing north, east, south, and west are required for a successful visit, and at most 10 are allowed to post. No precise video requirement could be found.

The meta date of each confluence includes the country it is in, maps of the country, the nearest town to it, the link to the antipode, and a small global which allows users to move to the confluences one degree toward 8 directions (north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, northwest) to the current confluence.

To me, the whole website is pretty awesome as an all volunteer supported one. I am thinking about several ways to improve it though. First, the visit to the confluence could be organized in terms of the season when it was visited. One could easily figure out the season of the visit since the date of the visit is always posted. However, if there are categories of seasons, users could find, for example, all visits in spring to different confluences. Second, tagging could be used for photos, facilitating a bottom up search function based on the terms visitors assign to the photos they take. By doing this, users could find pictures meeting their specific requirements, for example, all pictures of forests.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries’ website and its MadCat Catalog have many features that demonstrate the libraries’ efforts to provide users with resources that are responsive to user needs. Such efforts are evident in both the catalog’s design and its organization. For the most part, the efforts appear quite successful, especially for its primary audience – students at the University of Wisconsin.

The main library website is a cleanly designed portal that provides users with options and information in six categories: (i) research shortcuts, (ii) books/articles/databases, (iii) library services, (iv) information about the libraries, (v) help and guidance, and (vi) library news. For research shortcuts, the website contains the common textbox shortcut for users to search the library catalog, but it also contains a “QuickSearch for Articles” with a drop-down menu of various subject areas and a textbox with corresponding drop-down menus for users to search the “Top 10 Databases,” such as JSTOR, Google Scholar and the ProQuest Research Library. The website also reaches beyond the MadCat Catalog in providing options for books/articles/databases. Users can access WorldCat, the E-Resource Gateway, E-Books, the Madison Public Library Catalog, and other libraries directly from the library’s homepage. (Many of the resources are restricted to students and faculty of the University of Wisconsin, which is not surprising, but does diminish the usefulness of the website to other users of the website and MadCat Catalog.) The website also serves as an access point for those users with MadCat Accounts to see the items they currently have checked out, to renew items, and check their library fines and fees. The website also provides users access to the libraries’ extensive email alert and RSS feed services. Users can receive alerts and feeds from various libraries, such as the Law Library and the health sciences library, or on various subjects, such as agriculture, fine arts, or world history.

For help and guidance, the website describes the “Ask A Librarian” reference services that reference librarians provide users in person, by phone, email or instant messenger. Users can also access contact information for subject specialists who assist with in-depth research on a myriad of subjects. The website also provides users with a helpful collection of “Research Tips and Tricks,” which consists of videos and tipsheets on pertinent topics, such as “Too Many Search Results?” and “Need to Cite Articles, Books, or Web Pages?”

The libraries’ desire to make information accessible and useful to its users carries over into the MadCat Catalog itself. The Catalog has three distinct ways to search for information: (i) Basic Search, (ii) Guided Search, and (iii) Course Reserve Search. The Basic Search provides more options than its name implies. Users can search using a feature called “Words Anywhere,” which approximates a Google search in that it will “search for all terms entered in the search box, no matter what order the terms are entered and no matter where the terms appear in in a MadCat record.” Basic Search also contains search options, such as keyword Boolean, call number browse, and OCLC number, in addition to the standard title and author searches.

The Guided Search allows users to search for keywords in numerous drop-down menu categories, ranging from ISBN to Title to Publisher Name to Internet Links to Opus/Thematic Number. The Course Reserve Search allows students to search for items on reserve from drop-down menus for instructor, department, course, and section. In addition to provide the various search methods, the MadCat Catalog takes the extra step of providing extensive Search Hints directly below the search box for each search type. So, with virtually no effort, users can glance below and presumably improve their search results in the MadCat Catalog.

Upon retrieving a particular record in the Catalog, a user finds detailed information about the item, including Library of Congress call number, LC subject headings, OCLC and ISBN numbers, internet links to table of content information, location and current status of the item. The Catalog also provides users with the option of emailing, printing, or saving any entry. MARC records are available for each entry, and users can have the results formatted in UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation Format), as well. Faculty, staff, and students from any University of Wisconsin campus can also search and request items from any other University of Wisconsin system library and receive the item within two to four business days.

Another special feature of the MadCat Catalog is called “New in MadCat,” which allows users to search the books, journals and titles that have been cataloged within the last four weeks in any particular campus library. This search feature also provides helpful hints on how to conduct a successful search within the “New in MadCat” lists. The library also makes available an RSS feed for particular subjects and campus libraries based on the “New in MadCat” lists.

Overall, I was impressed with the MadCat Catalog. It appears to provide all of the features one would expect from a major university library catalog and more. I particularly like the way it goes to great lengths to avoid a “cookie-cutter” approach to research, but rather, it gives users many ways to find items in the libraries and to receive the results in a variety of formats. It also does not assume that its users understand the best way to research its catalog; rather, it seeks to provide hints and instructions at every opportunity. There is room for aesthetic improvement (e.g., it could add images of book jacket covers and choose a more attractive font and spacing for its record entries) and improvements in accessibility for special needs patrons. However, for the most part, the Catalog appears to conform to accepted standards for library cataloging and do a very good job of serving the needs of those who utilize the University of Wisconsin library system.

Bedford Public Library

Bedford Public Library

This time, I chose to examine the Bedford Public Library OPAC (Open Public Access Catalog). First of all, what attracted my attention is the color scheme of the home page. The main page of the Bedford Public Library presents the earthy scheme of colors (i.e., green, brown, & blue) that makes it easy to view the interface. According to its color, the main page is divided into the menus in three columns and a top row.

The top row menu bar offers the information on the library services in general in accordance with ages and library patron's interest: infozone, reader's corner, kids place, teenspace, seniors, and events in addition to the general library services information such as catalog, patron's account, hours, location/map, library cards, and contact info. The left side column provides the detailed info on patron's account, how to use library, and how to get involved in the library activities; the middle column with the up-to-date news in the library community (i.e., Tax Preparation help, new library blog, and library on Flickr); the right column with the more specified info on finding information, books for readers' corner, and news & events.

What's more user-friendly in the BPL is the search feature that accommodates patrons' or just browsing users' needs: 1. there's quick search engine for "Find books, movies, music & more." 2. The BPL OPAC also provides site search engine. 3. Quick links supplies the bird-eye view of the list of what users might be interested in accessing, searching, and finding.

In order to understand better the BPL OPAC, I clicked "Catalog." The menu directed me to another page that specifically deals with searching, finding, & retrieving the items that users want. What stood out is the color scheme that made easy on my eye to read the letter on the screen.

Users can search the desired item by title, subject, call number, author, keyword, or isbn/issn. And also, the site provides the explicit guideline that users limit search to DVDs|Videos|Music|Books on CD|Books on Tape|eBooks|Titles on Order.

I tentatively typed "Shakespeare in Love" by title. It directed me to the page that lists all the metadata possible pertaining to the movie. The metadata includes a plethora of information of description on its duration, performer, director, photographer, format, audience level, subjects, authors, ISBN, and tags.

What captured my attention is the tags. All the tags listed on the metadata show how users label the movie in accordance with their own understanding and easiness of their own retrieval later on. The most interesting tags include Colin Firth, Judi Dench, 16th century acting cinema, and the like. The users tagging information accounts for the endeavor that the BPL is making to accommodate the users need and to understand users behavior on the library OPAC interface.

On the bottom of the page displays the user-friendly icons for new search, place a hold, save records, MARC Display, and another search. I was surprised to find MARC (Machine Readable Catalog) display.


The Bedford Public Library OPAC does appear user-friendly for a variety of users, whether they are the general public or information specialists.

UC Berkeley

This week, I chose to examine the library for the University of California at Berkley.

The library website has an attractive layout, and is much simpler looking than I was expecting. Right away I noticed, however, that the main page is missing any sort search box. I found it surprising that they don’t even have a quick link to the library’s OPAC.

The main page is divided into 5 columns with colorful tabs. The tabs are labeled: Find Information, Library Catalogs, Services, About the Libraries, and Help. Each column had bullet points of information that can be found within each tab. This information only takes up a portion of the screen, however, leaving a lot of gray space.

The Find Information tab brings you to a new page that provides the appropriate links to databases for e-journals, articles, and electronic resources.

The Library Catalogs tab brings you to a new page that provides links to Pathfinder- Berkely’s OPAC, Melvyl- all of UC’s OPAC, and WorldCat. Additionally, the library also provides links to a wide range of other libraries and websites that are relevant to the users, such as regional public libraries, other UC campuses, California Digital Library, and other College and University Libraries [including the University of Texas at Austin!- which also happens to be the only non-California school listed]

Within the OPAC, you can perform either a quicksearch, or an advanced search, which allows you to search by Publisher, Place of Publication, Edition, and series, and also allows you to limit the results by date, language, library location, and format. Additionally, the side bar menu offers a Browse option. The OPAC lets you "browse through various indexes, each one covering a different kind of information about the items in the library (Title, Author, Subject, etc.). Keyword indexes list words occurring anywhere in the specified part of the catalog record." The side bar menu also lets users search the recent acquisitions. Users have the option to sort the items by Author, Title, Date, Location, and Call Number. Users also have the option of emailing the results page to themselves.

The OPAC allows the users to choose what facets information are included in the search results brief display. Among the various options are ISSN/ISBN number, Description (pages and size), Subject Headings, and Notes. Also, users are able to email the search results to themselves.

Overall, I didn't find this OPAC particularly striking. Actually, I found both the information on the main page and the search result display to be quite boring. Maybe after examining more sophisticated OPACs, my taste and expectations have changed. This OPAC is functional, I didn't encounter particular issues or problems, but it did leave me wanting more.

Harvard's Open Collections

Harvard University has developed an Open Collections Program for a few select projects, starting in 2002, with funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The two main projects started in 2004 were Women Working, 1800-1930 and Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930. Subsequent funding from Arcadia went to form Contagion: Historical Views of Epidemics and Diseases and funding from Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud for the upcoming Islamic Heritage Project. The Program is geared mainly toward educators, students, and researchers.

Women Working and Immigration have similar setups, with browsing and searching options, along with Help, Related Links, and tools for Educators sections. One can browse by what they call "Genre" (books, photographs, diaries, manuscripts, etc.) or by "Subject" (topics, themes, people, dates and events, etc.) One can search through the digitized items or the Full Text versions, but unfortunately most of the digitized items are scanned images and not in full text, which limits searching abilities.
The search box, shown here, gives helpful hints for searching, and allows you to sort by title, creator, or date and by document type. For the few items that have been converted to Full Text using OCR, there is a search option to look for a particular word or phrase that occurs.

The Open Collections Program is an aggregation of digitized materials from Harvard University's libraries and Social Museum, and the images are viewable through Harvard's own Viewer device and are downloadable, provided they are used by educators or students in educational settings.

The FAQ and Help sections of the site are very useful for users, as the layout may be confusing for people trying to browse or search for specific material.


The Contagion part of the website is set up very differently, however, which would no doubt lead to confusion by users. Perhaps this is because of the variance in funding for the project, but the collection is mostly made up of specific subjects (i.e. Cholera Epidemics in the 19th Century or The Boston Smallpox Epidemic, 1721) with their own books, articles, manuscripts, and images separated from the others. This yields an unwieldy searching atmosphere, but if the researcher knows what is needed, can just click on the subject heading to find it.

Overall the Open Collections Program is a useful Digital Library for these subjects, and the digitized images come across nicely in the Harvard Viewer, but the site could definitely benefit from some better searching and browsing options and consistency throughout.

JoCo Public Library

When I first arrived at the Johnson County Library homepage, I was immediately impressed by it's friendly and usable appearance. The simple catalog search and the “How Do I” pull down list gave a clear menu of options that both the initiate and uninitiate library user can easily and quickly appreciate and use. The tabs across the top were noticeable, and I didn't have to search around for more library options.

The “Find a Good Book” tab caught my eye; I'm always looking for good reader's advisory websites. This website blew me away with its amazing features: recommended reading lists by age, searching books by plot, series, or author, book discussion blogs, featured books and authors, best selling lists, and downloadable audiobooks (to name just a few). I decided to evaluate these different browsing tools to see if they were as useful as they claimed to be.

Sadly, the Novelist databases with the plot and series search capabilities are only available to card carrying members, so I couldn't play with them. The recommended reading lists were organized according to age groups, genres, gender (chick lit) and allowed readers to write reviews of the books. The lists were not incredibly long (but then again, if they were, the list would be more of a catalog than a recommended list), and some of the choices were surprising. For example, at the top of the adventure recommended reading list was Charles Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit. While I personally am a huge fan of Dickens, for a library to choose this lesser-known novel as the top recommended adventure novel (not even A Tale of Two Cities!) seemed odd.

The links to best seller lists and library promotions were more helpful, I thought, than the odd choices on the recommended reading lists. I especially liked the Kansas City Literary Map that documents literary landmarks across Kansas City. The experience of going on a literary scavenger hunt in your home town with your book club, family, or friends sounds amazingly fun. What a great way to promote library use!

In the end, the Johnson County Library website was quite user friendly and tried to be ahead of the times, although the recommended reading lists had a few odd choices. I was impressed by the accessibility of the downloadable audiobooks and the promotional projects like the Kansas City Literary Map. Overall, I thought the website was very user-friendly and efficient but needed a little polishing with time.

Texas A&M University Libraries

http://library.tamu.edu

I will start off my review of library websites and OPACs on the class blog with the one I am most familiar with, the library at Texas A&M University, where I went to school as an undergrad, to use as a baseline for comparison with those of other libraries. The library’s website is somewhat bland and generic, and is in the process of being overhauled. Personally, on an aesthetic level I actually prefer the clean white look of the older sections of the website to the shades of gray and blue in the new sections. The site seems to be pretty standard. Some of the more special features are the Search Now box in the center of the home page and the Ask a Librarian feature, which includes chat capability.

One newly reworked section/feature is for searching E-Journals. Now, when you type your search query into the box, some of the results pop up directly under the text box and update as you type. This nifty feature allows you to preview the results on the fly and make sure that you are searching for want you actually want.

Another one of the reworked features, which I mentioned earlier, is Search Now, which allows users to search across the library’s holdings and the databases to which it has described in a single location. Since I am no longer with the university, my capabilities are limited to the library’s holdings. However, this looks like it may work better than it did when I attended and worked there and allow users to search for information more effectively. A potential problem, particularly for users who do not know which specific database they should search, is that you still have to select a set of databases in which to search. When I was there, I preferred to just go to the OPAC or database directly because it was less of a hassle that way, and I could get better results more quickly by going to the source.

LibCat, the library’s OPAC seems to be pretty standard. It certainly is not aesthetically pleasing. The OPAC can be somewhat difficult to use and definitely could be a problem for a non-university audience. That said, it offers search tools that can help you narrow down your search fairly well once you have figured out how to use them. The OPAC does offer a few features, including the complete MARC record, and icons by the search results listings showing what type of media and format it is. Overall, I found it to be very useful and I did not have many major problems with it, although that may be because I have not had much experience with OPACs and therefore do not have anything to compare it against. One problem that I do recall is that the keyword search did not work particularly well, so it was almost always more effective to search for titles and authors when known, or within the Library of Congress subject headings.

Search UW Libraries and beyond

I am reviewing WorldCat Local at the University of Washington, a new product from OCLC that will allow libraries to have the benefit of searching their catalog as well as WorldCat all from one place.

The University of Washington Libraries is the first library system to implement the Beta version of OCLC’s new search interface WorldCat Local. This feature is embedded on their main web page, as a simple search text box, while there is only a link to their OPAC from this page.

One of the greatest strengths in this is the ability to do a three tiered search of WorldCat. It places the results in order of relevancy. UW Libraries first, then Summit libraries (a consortium of Washington, and Oregon libraries), and then all other WorldCat affiliated libraries. It allows one to request items in all 3 tiers, and in a recent visit to UT Libraries the ILL librarian from UW claimed their borrowing of ILL materials had increased 300% because of this feature. In addition, depending on the home libraries OPAC, it will allow one to see the availability of an item

The search will also include citations to articles in several databases, as well as providing links to subscription databases which contain the full text or the record for the print item in the UW Libraries. One can also see how to cite these articles in various citation styles or import these citations into RefWorks or EndNote.

Some interesting extras included are some features that will allow links to reviews or to allow users to add reviews as long as they sign up for a free worldcat user account.

The only real limitation I could find is that you can’t do a very specific search. For example, it will not allow users to limit by branch locations or specific format, so for these features they have to enter into their OPAC if they wish to do this.

The main reason I was interested in this is because as an employee of the UT Libraries, I was recently informed that UT will be adopting this service as soon they become Z 39.50 compliant, even though their website claims they already are.

The University of Washington Libraries

The main page for the University of Washington Libraries is simple and clean. Immediately one notices a search-box titled “Search UW libraries and beyond” located near the top of the Webpage. This search box is convenient, and uses a key word search to locate materials at the University of Washington, through Summit (a shared catalog of academic libraries in Washington and Oregon), and around the world through WorldCat.org.

This search box is a new feature, and the library requests feedback through either a survey or email. The search is actually pretty interesting, as it turns up books, articles in databases, audio and visual recordings, maps, etc. The results from the University of Washington are listed first, followed by material held by libraries participating in Summit, and then libraries participating in WorldCat. The search is further refined by little mock faceted classification bar at the side of the page. This bar allows the user to refine his or her search through a variety of means.

As an example, I searched for “Lyndon Johnson.” This search returned 8,500 results; which would seem to be an overwhelming amount. However, I found the results navigable, and was easily able to refine my search to locate an individual item. The first page listed the most popular biographies of President Johnson along with his autobiography, probably a good place to start. Along the side is the bar used to refine the search.

After 1193 entries, the University of Washington libraries had run out of material. By this time the association of the results with President Johnson was beginning to diminish and the search was returning items that were written by multiple people one with the first name Lyndon and another with the last name Johnson. At this point the Summit results began. Again, there was no apparent method to the sorting of the results, nonetheless the first items returned were popular biographies of President Johnson. Entry 1,604 and beyond were from WorldCat. Searches may be refined and limited to just the University of Washington libraries, particular formats, publication date, content, audience, and language.

The remainder of the site was user friendly, clean, and helpful. The University of Washington libraries offers reference services via email, online chat, and the telephone, and provides links for frequently asked questions. There are Webpages devoted to particular user groups, such as K-12 students, undergraduates, graduate students and faculty, and government employees; each of these pages details the libraries programs and services for that particular group and gives advice on how to best use what the library has to offer.

I found the librarian biographies to be one of the most interesting features. Each of the University’s librarians has their own page containing a brief biography, contact information, and often a photo. I thought this was a rather nice idea that could help users (and potential users) become comfortable with the staff.

Marble Falls ISD's WebCollection Plus

I went out in search of a third school library OPAC to review and started by searching through other school districts in the Austin area. Apparently, Destiny, the system used in Leander ISD and at St. Andrews School, is the popular choice, with it being used in Pflugerville, Hays, Dripping Springs, Georgetown, Eanes, and Lake Travis. Like AISD, Round Rock uses iBistro. I found this very curious, seeing the I thought iBistro was so much better than Destiny.

Luckily, I was able to visit with Megan Cooper, Library Services Director for Leander ISD, and asked her why the district chose Destiny. She told me she was on the selection committee the year Destiny was chosen, a few years back when she was the librarian at Vista Ridge High School and before the district level library position was created. She said that Destiny was her distant second choice. She liked the SIRSI system (iBistro) better than Destiny, but it was much more expensive. I'm not so surprised, seeing that iBistro has so many more features than Destiny does. In Destiny's defense, she explained that Destiny was the only product the committee looked at which was created for school libraries specifically and that Follett is good about updating the software and offering support with it. All interesting information, but I still like iBistro better.

So on I searched, but not very successfully, for another school OPAC system. The library websites for San Marcos High School, the two San Marcos junior highs, Manor High School, Manor Middle School, and Bastrop Middle School all mention nothing about an on-line catalog, while the "Library" link on the Bastrop High School website is dead. They can't all still be using a card catalog, could they? The pictures of the libraries on their websites look like they have nice modern furniture and things. But why wouldn't the OPAC be on their websites? Are some digital catalogs not web-based?

Lago Vista ISD appears to have one secondary school library for the middle and high school, and the website does have a link to a library catalog that might be called Lincoln, but alas, clicking the link brings me to a "server not found" message. D'oh! This is getting frustrating...

And then finally, success! Out at Marble Falls High School, home of the fighting Mustangs, they use a library OPAC called WebCollection Plus, which like Destiny, is published by Follett. And like Destiny, the Welcome page is half blank. It's similar to Destiny in other ways as well, offering searches by keyword, title, author, subject, series, and call number.

Then the choices get a little more interesting. You can do a Power search, the advanced search feature, as well as a Limiters search, which lets you limit the publishing year, reading level, interest level, and types of media. It also allows searches by AR (Accelerated Reader) and Lexile levels, which might be very helpful, depending on how you feel about those reading systems. I'm ok with AR as long as it's voluntary for the kids, but I'm not such a huge fan of the Lexile system. It's a way of defining reading levels for books and testing kids to match them with books on their appropriate level. But I know that a book like Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick had a Lexile level of 1000, while The Giver by Lois Lowry had a score of 760, a major difference. But Freak the Mighty is a very simple story; it just happens to have a character in it who's unusually brilliant and uses lots of big, fancy words. Meanwhile, the themes in The Giver are much more complex, even if the vocabulary used to describe those ideas is simple.

Anyway, I tried my now-default Keyword search of Bronte and got much better results than I did using Destiny: internet sites, novels, biographies, criticism, a film. The basic search results tell you the format type, title, author, year, call number, and status (if the book is in or out). When I click on a specific copy of Jane Eyre, then I'm offered features like adding it to my bookbag, or placing the book on hold/reserve.

All in all, although it may not be as fancy as iBistro, WebCollection Plus appears to be much better than Destiny, at least in my humble opinion. So why is Destiny the popular choice for most of the school districts in our area?

The Informedia Project

The Informedia Project is a research initiative to train computers to “read” digital video. Working through Carnegie Mellon, the idea behind the project is that, since video is such an important historical and artistic medium, there should be measures in place for machines to be able to automatically transcribe, search, and index video. In theory, this would make searching for bits of video as easy as searching for text via Google. This is a very cool and technically very complicated task. The Informedia Project Website documents the work being done.

Ironically, for a project that wants to make information retrieval considerably easier, the Informedia Project Website itself is not the most user-friendly. On first look, the site appears clean, straightforward, and easy to navigate. However, when one starts digging around, it becomes apparent that there might be a lack of vision to the site.


The site documents a collection of research in the left-hand navigation bar. Each of these research projects has a summary of the project; many also include a collection of papers documenting the research done for the project. So far so good.


But the order of the nav bar is strange. Projects are listed first, then past work. Following this is Publications, Demos, the Team listing, What’s New, a link to the site map, and finally a link to the home page. The order of the links seems odd enough, but what is most frustrating is that the list of work/publications seems to be split between the project heading and the publications heading. There doesn’t seem to be any logic to this, except that somewhere around 2004 it was decided from that point on to list all work on the Publications page. Within the publications themselves, there is a lot of fantastic information about the work being done within this project.

The site has a Google-powered search bar, which works as one would expect. The amount of information varies from paper to paper. Some papers have links to the full-text; others do not. I would imagine this is due to publication rights.

There is a line on the nav bar called Demos/Downloads. What is potentially a large chunk of an explanation for the site is currently under construction. However, there is a timeline of the various projects. This is pretty cool. It is dynamic and takes advantage of web 2.0. Everyone who designs a website with any substantial amount of information should take note of this. It’s a simple timeline that is much more usable because of its dynamic attributes.


Altogether, the Informedia Project is one that I personally think holds great potential, but for the moment has a website that is underwhelming. Still, I recommend the site for anyone interested in visual search engines.

Folger Shakespeare Library

http://www.folger.edu/index.cfm

The Folger Shakespeare Library is a good example of a special collections library. Located in Washington, DC, the Folger is a valuable resource for research on “Shakespeare and on the early modern age in the West.” The resources held by the Folger include: “256,000 books; 60,000 manuscripts; 250,000 playbills; 200 oil paintings; some 50,000 drawings, watercolors, prints, and photographs; and a wealth of other materials, including musical instruments, costumes, and films.”

Due to the rarity of many of the materials, the collection’s use is limited to scholars and qualified researchers. However, there are many resources available to the general public. The Folger is known for its “scholarly and public programs…these include plays, concerts, literary readings, family activities, and exhibitions, as well as numerous K-12 and college programs for students and teachers.”

The Folger website is a good foundation and access point to other useful resources. For example, in the section labeled “Discover Shakespeare,” there are brief overviews of the life and works of William Shakespeare, and there are also useful links to other sites, many of which contain full-text works of Shakespeare. In the section labeled “Teach and Learn” there are many helpful resources for teachers including lessons plans, and there are also fun activities to get kids involved and interested in Shakespeare.

The library’s catalog is called “Hamnet."
There is nothing particularly unusual or special about the library catalog. It provides basic and advanced searching capabilities and brief, detailed, and marc views of the records. The catalog has a help section and an ask a librarian section. The only characteristics of the catalog that stood out were the categories of “Other” and “Finding Aids.” In the section “Other,” there are useful links to other sites, scholarly journals, and other libraries. There are also a few online facsimiles that are provided as linked resources in some of the records; this is an excellent way to reach out and provide access to the general public and scholars who are not allowed to handle the materials but may be interested in seeing what the original texts looked like. Furthermore, the “Finding Aids” have their own link but can also be found in the “Other” section. They provide some useful information on a few select works, and they appear to be tools that would best be utilized by a scholar.

Overall, the website and the catalog are not difficult to navigate and they both appear to be very useful resources. However, the catalog seems to be a more useful resource for the scholar while the library’s website, as a whole, seems to be useful for everyone. The website gives everyone access to selected art, information, and even media. To sample some of the media files go to “What’s On” then “Lend Us Your Ears."

Furthermore, the Folger tries to best accommodate who is using their website by adding a touch of personalization for users. On the homepage, a user has the option to choose to browse the site normally or to pick a category in “Especially for,” which is broken down into four categories including: Visitors, Students & Families, K-12 Teachers, and Scholars. Each category has a different introduction to the site and in some categories some of the links that may not be useful to that particular type of user are removed.

For those interested in Shakespeare and/or Renaissance works, I highly suggest checking out this library’s website!

UPenn's PennTags

Several weeks ago, Megan mentioned the University of Pennsylvania’s libraries as one of the few academic online catalogs that made use of tagging. Curious, I went a-looking.

Penn Libraries’ home-page is not immediately distinguishable from other academic OPACs. A prominently-placed “FindIt” search is provided for quick searching through the various catalogs associated with Penn. Along with links to different UPenn libraries' catalogs (and their more advanced and granular search pages), the panel on the left-hand side also includes links to contact information, e-resources, hours, etc.

The central panel features some randomly selected pictures of Penn’s libraries and librarians, along with links to upcoming library workshops, lectures, and events. This central pane is also tabbed. These tabs include: 1.) “Ask Us/ Get Help,” with libraries hours, contact information, IM/LiveChat options, etc; 2.) “Subjects/ Collections,” with subject categories (e.g., “Materials Research” or "Philosophy") and the links to their relevant databases and article indexes, e-journals, etc; and, 3.) “Libraries,” a tab with links to the various libraries in the Penn system.

Nothing too unfamiliar thus far.

Finally, though, in addition to the Penn Text article finder, we are introduced to the OPAC’s “toolbox” on the right-hand panel, which includes a link to “PennTags.” Following this we find ourselves on PennTags’ home-page, with tag cloud featured prominently.

Anyone familiar with del.icio.us should recognize the layout immediately:

Following, in turn, the link to "music" we find ourselves on another page that lists all pages that have been tagged with “music” by Penn students and faculty.



Interestingly, there was a wide variety of sources among the several hundred links that the "music" tag returned, not all of them linked to book citations or indexed journals from the UPenn library system. Some, for instance, were links to full-text articles on other university’s websites. Others were links to Youtube and popular internet sites.

Many, of course, were links to citations in the UPenn catalog. For instance, clicking on the link for Born in flames (tagged with cultural_theory, music)…

…returns this citation:

The online citation is much like any other, except that at the bottom its user-generated tags (cultural_theory, music) are displayed. Also available is a link to “Add to PennTags,” which is the means by which an individual actually does their tagging (through an "Add to PennTags" link added to your browser). One must have a current UPenn ID to tag materials.

Structurally, the PennTags system is similar to del.icio.us. We can browse a specific individual’s tags, and perhaps more importantly (from a research standpoint, that is) browse their “Project Folders,” which bundle related links the way that del.icio.us presently does.

Overall, PennTags seems promising, though still in a sort of experimental limbo, as the preponderance of the UPenn catalog has not been tagged, and, likewise, many of the links listed under a certain tag (say, again, “music”) were not specifically items held by UPenn’s libraries.

I find this hybrid model of authority quite fascinating. The tags (i.e., user-controlled) are not as obvious or accessible - or nearly as comprehensive - as the traditional-looking front-page OPAC (i.e., authority-controlled). Still, it suggests, if nothing else, a possibly viable means for a new and layered approach to information access, retrieval, and classification.