Page 191 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Knowledge Organization: Classification and Cataloguing Theory

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decisions of suppliers than the actual discovery needs of users”. However, although these
new solutions can harvest and pre-process some of the collections, thus optimizing the
search in such collections, libraries will still need to provide seamless access, through
remote searching, to resources that are not necessarily harvestable – either because of
licensing restrictions or because of the library’s policies or technological capabilities.
Dempsey indeed envisions that “we will see greater integration of the catalogue with
these other resources, whether this happens at the applications level (where the catalogue
sits behind the resolver, or is a metasearch target), or at the data level (where catalogue
data, article level data, repository data, and so on, are consolidated in merged resources).”
The North Carolina State University (NCSU) Endeca-based catalogue was the first system
to go live with what the NCSU library refers to as a new catalogue built on decoupled
architecture. Other solutions, such as the Primo system from Ex Libris and AquaBrowser®
Library from Medialab Solutions, adhere to the same kind of architecture.
When describing the new-generation end-user interface, vendors and librarians use
expressions that vary from “visual faceted search that connects to any number of data
sources” (AquaBrowser, from Medialab Solutions) to “a new product…that brings together
content, community, and discovery in a single search” [Encore, from Innovative Interfaces);
a “new online catalogue [that] provides the speed and flexibility of popular online search
engines while capitalizing on existing catalogue records” (NCSU Endeca-based catalogue);
and “one-stop solution for the discovery and delivery of local and remote resources”
(Primo, from Ex Libris). Although these products differ in many aspects, the basic
functionality that they offer to users is similar. The process of searching for and locating
scholarly materials is the pivot around which the user experience is built. This discovery
process is accompanied by a delivery mechanism to complete the user’s quest for
information. In addition, the system provides related services to enable users to save
queries, set alerts, store records in various formats in the system or elsewhere and set their
preferences.
The main challenge in designing an effective search process is to create an interface that is
as familiar and intuitive as the ones employed by Web search engines and other Internet
tools but that serves the user better. Such an interface would yield results that are more
appropriate to the user’s needs and would offer immediate gratification by making items
readily available in a variety of ways; these could include, for example, providing links to
electronic materials, showing the locations where the user can pick up physical items, and
enabling the user to submit requests related to items of interest. The success of a search
process depends on several factors: the research data available to the user, the search
engine, the search interface, the user who initiates the process, and the order in which the
results are returned. This section discusses these factors and, using the Ex Libris Primo
discovery and delivery solution, illustrates ways of addressing them.
Question

What are the problems in implementing new end-user interfaces for systems in the library?
Source: http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/files/Publications/Userexperienceinthelibraryacasestudy.pdf
9.7 Summary

Over the years, the cataloguing metamorphosed into various forms.
A Library Catalogue is a record of the holdings of a library. In order to meet the requirements
of users, it is prepared to consist of various units records.
These catalogues have extended the scope of centralised cataloguing and library networks.

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