a. User’s needs: legibility, clarity, understandability, and navigability; language of users in search function(s); unique and different needs of users, including those with special needs
i. The Otis Library’s OPAC homepage is very clear and legible, with a nicely-laid out design (very artsy, which makes sense). At the very top, you can make the distinction between whether you are a student, faculty, alumni, or staff, and that changes the entire page and options available. You can search by Keyword in the Author, Title, Subject, ISBN, ISSN, LCCN fields, or all of them at once. Or, directly beneath, you can browse search by title, author, subject, call number, journal title, or publisher. You don’t have to do any navigating to find these search functions – they are front and centered, highlighted, and stacked logically (keyword and then browse beneath it). This is one of the things that attracted me to this OPAC – its clear understandability and ease of use.
ii. In a simple task bar to the left, there is a link to a library survey to measure satisfaction of users/visitors of the site, library hours, links to the catalog searches explained above, course reserves, and then a series of options for advanced users. These include setting search filters, saving search sessions, closing sessions, viewing search history, viewing a “cart,” and “gateway help.” Gateway help opens a separate window and walks the user through each of the search processes and the cart process (this operates much like online shopping, except with library materials).
iii. Underneath these links on the left-hand side is a series of the typical links one would expect to find on a college OPAC: catalog, databases, images, info lit, pathfinders, research help, Ask a Librarian, services, O-Space LMS, D.I.D. Image Bank, and About us. In case you still can’t find what you’re looking for, or you don’t want to go to all the trouble of clicking and browsing through different links, there is a search bar to search the entire library site directly beneath this list. All of this is very clearly laid out and legible.
iv. Last, at the bottom left-hand corner, there is a space to log in and view your library account, a space for alumni to click, and a link to email the reference librarian.
v. Beneath the browse and keyword search bars, a user could also choose to view a list of new books or new videos, which is really cool for an academic (college) library to do – this is another feature, along with the cart option, which seems more like a Public Library OPAC than an academic OPAC. I think this gives a variety of users’ familiarity with the web interface. For instance, if you were used to academic searches, you could search through the typical title, author, ISBN, etc. But if you needed to browse or discover, one of these lists might be better.
vi. In the center-bottom of the homepage, beneath the new books and videos lists links, there are a series of “Quick Links,” helping users get familiar with the instructional technology at Otis, and a series of links that take you directly to frequently used and popular search indexes and databases, like Grove Art, Oxford English Dictionary, and ArtIndex. Surprisingly, and to their credit, they also have included in this list links to iTunesU, Wikis, and Blogs, Otis on YouTube, and O Space – a series of non-traditional but useful sources for information and community-building. This is also the section which contains the map of the library, circulation policies (logical, since it’s directly underneath the catalog search), recommended purchases, and a magazines holdings list (pretty cool!)
vii. One of the really neat things about the Otis OPAC is that it has a window on the right which features a digitized magazine or journal publication of interest to users, and it changes each time you come to the homepage (sort of like a “features” or “news” window). In the times I have logged in, this has always been one of the first items of interest for me.
viii. Another really innovative thing to top off this OPAC is at the bottom center of the homepage – Arts in the News and Otis Blogs. Under these headings are a series of links listed by publication (New York Times, NPR, Rhizome News) or Blog name (The “O” Observed, and Otis Toy Design), and these are also updated every day.
b. Importance of content and arrangement of records to finding, identifying, selecting, and obtaining items: display what is asked for in a meaningful way, not random; navigation correlates to displayed information in a logical way.
i. I decided to search “Speculation,” since that was the featured digital magazine in the window box to my right, and I conducted first a keyword search anywhere. I was surprised at the results, because the word “speculation” did not immediately pop up. But I was impressed with the digitized thumbnail image of the object (book, most of the time), appearing to the right of the retrieved result.
ii. My search results were much more logical (to me, at least) when I entered the same term under a Browse search and search under title. Instead of 9 hits which I wasn’t sure related to my term, I had 10 that were most definitely related.
iii. Conversely, my search in both search bars (browse and keyword) returned excellent and logical results when I searched for a name of an artist (I searched “Rembrandt”).
iv. The display of items was always meaningful, with them being listed by type (videocassette, book, etc.) and a little icon showing the type on the left and a thumbnail image on the right. The highlighted title takes you to similar and surrounding titles you may be interested in, and you can select all or select a few (through checkboxes) to save to your cart.
c. The requirement to follow accepted international standards for information content and structure:
i. By making it a fusion between commercial practices (cart, and thumbnail views), alternative library collections (librarything.com), and public library interfaces (lists of newly arrived books and videos to browse), this OPAC feels more friendly and less rigid than a standard academic OPAC. However, it is clear that it is still adhering to international and national standards in the search functions it provides and the databases it allows one to search. In fact, one could argue that the fusion of these different interfaces, if successful, is standard-setting in the field.
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