Roy TennantCalifornia Digital

Library

Roy TennantCalifornia Digital

Library

Points of Pain, Peculiar Possibilities, & A Patron Paradise

Points of Pain, Peculiar Possibilities, & A Patron Paradise

or, A slightly arbitrary set of hair-brained

ideas

or, A slightly arbitrary set of hair-brained

ideas

Pilgrimage to Mecca

Our users are increasingly using the Internet for their information needs…can you say “Google”?As the younger generation grows to adulthood, library funding and support may be in jeopardyWe’re dying out here — even if it isn’t immediately apparentBut not all gloom and doom — signs of dissatisfaction w/Internet information offers us a window of opportunityWe can and should trade on our reputation

Life in the ‘Hood

What You Can Do For UsIn a nutshell: make every library LOOK HUGE and FEEL PERSONAL

Build infrastructure and services that no single library can build — create BUILDING BLOCKS from which we can create services

Know when to be out front and when to let us be out front

Offer compelling central services that drive users to their local library

What Can We Do?Out Google Google:

Return Google results along with a good deal more

Build on our strengths:

Centralized metadata (WorldCat)

Dispersed service points (local libraries)

Think imaginatively

Ripoff good ideas from wherever they can be found

What do libraries want?

What do library users want?

How can we get that for them (us)?

The Basic Questions

To provide for the information needs of a clienteleTo build useful collections and provide effective services

To be used

What Libraries Want

To find what they wantTo find as much or as little as they needTo experience as little pain as possibleTo not have their time wastedTo have the option to control their experience and make informed decisionsTo be effectively advised

What Library Users Want

Basic User TruthsOnly librarians like to search, everyone else likes to find

A cite in the hand is worth 10 in the database

Good enough is just that

Pain avoidance is a powerful motivator

Library catalogs suck as information finding toolsThere are too many possible sources to search them separatelyThere is little advice about which resource to searchThere is no advice about which is better (we know, but we’re not telling)

Points of Pain

Why Library Catalogs Fail as Information Finding Tools

They are unable to search the entire universe of information

Local catalogs often lack books that can be requested

They have too little information about items

Most are Unable to accept multiple metadata formats

Many have hostile user interfaces (complexity is often a sign of lazy or incompetent design)

Union catalogs often have multiple records for the same item (which to request?)

What Better Case for FRBR?

FRBR: Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records, from IFLA

A recasting of bibliographic description into levels:

Work

Expression (translations)

Manifestation (editions)

Item (copies)

Both RLG and OCLC are experimenting with it

A&I Dbs

OAI Repos.

WorldCat

The Web

DL Colls.

Other

Integration Engine

Making the Pie

Making the Pie: Metadata

Metadata: cataloging by those paid better than librarians

Metadata: Structured information about an object or collection of objects

We must become very, very proficient with metadata — creating, harvesting, transforming, serving; your Metadata Switch is very important work

MARC is just the beginning, and unless we’re careful, will be too limiting; we must be proficient with Dublin Core, MODS, METS, etc.

File System

StoredEncodedin TEIXML

SearchIndexFull Text

UC PressDatabase

LibraryCatalog

METSRepository

MODS record

UC Press record

Structure

RecordsCreated

File System

StoredEncodedin TEIXML

Stored

SearchIndexFull Text

Project

Profile

SelectedFields

Extracted

SearchIndex

UC PressDatabase

LibraryCatalog

METSRepository

Project

Profile

SelectedFields

Extracted

MODS record

UC Press record

Structure

RecordsCreated

SearchIndex

Userqueries

File System

StoredEncodedin TEIXML

Stored

SearchIndexFull Text

UC PressDatabase

LibraryCatalog

METSRepository

Project

Profile

SelectedFields

Extracted

MODS record

UC Press record

Structure

RecordsCreated

SearchIndex

XSLT

User requests book

Resultsin XML

File System

StoredEncodedin TEIXML

Stored

SearchIndexFull Text

UC PressDatabase

LibraryCatalog

METSRepository

Project

Profile

SelectedFields

Extracted

MODS record

UC Press record

Structure

RecordsCreated

SearchIndex

XSLT

METS record in XML

File System

StoredEncodedin TEIXML

Stored

SearchIndexFull Text

Javaservlet

User requestsbook segment

UC PressDatabase

LibraryCatalog

METSRepository

Project

Profile

SelectedFields

Extracted

MODS record

UC Press record

Structure

RecordsCreated

SearchIndex

XSLT

File System

StoredEncodedin TEIXML

Stored

SearchIndexFull Text

Javaservlet

Booksegmentreturned

“Ingesting” — centralized by an individually tailored process“Harvesting” — centralized by a process applicable to an entire class of resources“Crawling” — software-based HTTP fetching“Dynamically Queried” — broadcast search at the moment of user need

Methods for Encompassing Resources

Making the Pie Principles

We never metadata we didn’t like (metadata R Us)

Decentralize metadata maintenance whenever possible

Centralize metadata searching whenever possible — Federate, then slice and dice

Metadata can be both mined and enhanced

Slicing the PieSlicing can be pre-selected or dynamic

By:

region (e.g., Australia)

topic area

format type

ease and rapidity of access

When to Slice the PieBefore searching:

Select general topic area

After searching:

Results clustering

Search within results

Slicing the Pie PrinciplesStrive to serve only that which will feed the hunger

Few will want the whole pie; some will want it sliced; others will want to slice it themselves

Slicing must happen regardless of how it was made

Serving the Pie

Provide ways for users to “drill down” in search results

Guide the user to useful subject terms

Cluster search results

Rank by:

Numbers of holding libraries

Usage, e.g., “click through count”

Weights assigned by librarians, or reflected in book reviews

Serving the PieWe need ways to keep librarians happy without enraging patrons (e.g., “advanced search” option)

Searching is an iterative process

A good search result is not the end, but the beginning (e.g., provide ability to format a bibliography, download or print the citations)

Serving the Pie PrinciplesBest served by those who know the consumer

Global services can (and should be) locally branded to maximize service delivery options for end users

Software “skins” are not new

No more business as usual!Out Google Google (Google w/ added value)Get good at sucking things upBe good producers and consumers of metadataWork together more broadly and deeplyBe user focused, but not user drivenHire out of our ranks, read out of our profession, get out more!

Things We Must Do

RecapHelp us LOOK HUGE and FEEL PERSONAL

Think building blocks, extensibility, flexibility, skins, richer and more diverse metadata

Federate, then slice and dice

Free WorldCat!