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.