Search results

This study investigated the design of three online public library catalogs in light of the cognitive ability and success of children ages five to eight.

A quasi-experimental approach was employed to examine the influence of system design on children’s searching strategies and search success. Interviews were used to explore children’s rationale for using icons and taxonomies in the catalogs. Fifty one children from one public library participated in this study. Inferential statistics were utilized to whether significant differences existed between use of the catalogs and the children’s success in finding information.

Use of images and text were helpful in searching the catalogs. Results of the ANOVA test indicated no significant difference among children’s searching success rates and the three catalogs. Additionally, the participants misidentified representations used in icons in all three catalogs and created valid search paths that did not produce results. There was a disconnect between the children’s cognitive abilities and the design representations of the three catalogs.

The study took place in one location, thus one should not overgeneralize the findings. Use of assigned tasks may have affected children’s success rates. Children’s searching using printed cards of display screens from the three catalogs instead of real-time interaction with them is also a limitation.

Because of the children’s reliance on images, the choice of visual representations is crucial to successful searching. Interface designers should involve young users in the design of today’s online catalogs. They should also consider new forms of representations such as auditory icons, verbal mouse overs, and zooms.

In addition to addressing the need for research on young children’s information seeking and use of online catalogs in public libraries, this research focuses on the need for an additional layer of visual representation and highlights flaws in currently used catalog designs.

This case study describes how one library leveraged shared resources by defaulting to a consortial catalog search.

The authors use a case study approach to describe steps involved in changing the catalog interface, then assess the project with a usability study and an analysis of borrowing statistics.

The authors determined the benefit to library patrons was significant and resulted in increased borrowing. The usability study revealed elements of the catalog interface needing improvement.

Taking advantage of an existing resource increased the visibility of consortial materials to better serve library patrons. The library provided these resources without significant additional investment.

While the authors were able to identify other libraries using their consortial catalog as the default search, no substantive published research on its benefits exists in the literature. This chapter will be valuable to libraries with limited budgets that would like to increase patron access to materials.

In recent years, aceted search has been a well-accepted approach for many academic libraries across the United States. This chapter is based on the author’s dissertation and work of many years on faceted library catalogs. Not to hope to be exhaustive, the author’s aim is to provide sufficient depth and breadth to offer a useful resource to researchers, librarians, and practitioners about faceted search used in library catalogs.

The chapter reviews different aspects of faceted search used in academic libraries, from the theory, the history, to the implementation. It starts with the history of online public access catalogs (OPACs) and how people search with OPACs. Then it introduces the classic facet theory and its relationship with faceted search. At last, various academic research projects on faceted search, especially faceted library catalogs, are briefly reviewed. These projects include both implementation studies and the evaluation studies.

The results indicate that most searchers were able to understand the concept of facets naturally and easily. Compared to text searches, however, faceted searches were complementary and supplemental, and used only by a small group of searchers.

The author hopes that the facet feature has not only been cosmetic but the answer to the call for the next generation catalog for academic libraries. The results of this research are intended to inform librarians and library information technology (IT) staff to improve the effectiveness of the catalogs to help people find information they need more efficiently.

This essay demonstrates how information systems — collections of documents, data, or other information-bearing objects — function internally as sites for creative manipulation of genre resources. In the information systems context, these textual activities are not clearly traced to the purposeful actions of specific writers.

Genre development for information systems can result from actions that may appear individually to be rote, repetitive, passive, and uninteresting. But as these actions are aggregated at increasing scales, genre components interact and shift, even if change is limited to one element of the larger assemblage. Although these changes may not be initiated by writers in accordance with targeted work activities and associated rhetorical goals, the composite texts thus produced are nonetheless powerful documents that come to partially constitute the broader activities they appear to merely support.

In demonstrating “writerless” phenomena of genre change in distributed, regulated systems, this essay complements and extends the strong body of existing work in genre studies that emphasizes the writer’s perspective and agency in its accounts of genre development. By showing how continually evolving compound documents such as digital libraries constitute such sites of unacknowledged genre change, this essay demonstrates how the social actions that these composite documents facilitate for their users also change.

The chapter aims to present a case study of what is involved in implementing the VuFind discovery tool and to describe usability, usage, and feedback of VuFind.

The chapter briefly documents Western Michigan University (WMU) and University of Richmond’s (UR) experience with VuFind. WMU Libraries embarked on a process of implementing a new catalog interface in 2008. UR implemented VuFind in 2012. The usability result and usage of Web 2.0 features are discussed.

The implementation processes at WMU and UR differ. At WMU, users’ input was not consistent and demanded software customization. UR strategically began with a very focused project management approach, and intended the product as short-term solution. The usability and feedback from several sites are also presented.

The benefits of using open source software include low barrier and cost to entry, highly customizable code, and unlimited instances (libraries may run as many copies of as many components as needed, on as many pieces of hardware as they have, for as many purposes as they wish). With the usability studies presented, VuFind is proved to be a valid solution for libraries.

The chapter provides a unique account of library’s experience providing an alternative catalog interface using open source software. It also uniquely reports on VuFind usability and initial testing results and evaluation.