Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want

New OCLC Report http://www.oclc.org/reports/onlinecatalogs/fullreport.pdf

Summary Points

What do end users want?
• Direct links to online content—
text and media formats
• Evaluative content, such as
summaries/abstracts, tables of
contents and excerpts
• Relevant search results
• Item availability information—
if the item is available and how
to get it
• Simple keyword search with
an advanced, guided search
option

What do librarians want?
• Duplicate records merged
• Typographical errors fixed
• Brief records upgraded
• Evaluative content, such as
tables of contents, summaries/
abstracts and cover art

AquaBrowser/Summon Demo

Thanks to everyone who attended the AquaBrowser/Summon Demo. Please post your thoughts about these resource discovery products. Staff input will be valuable to the Strategic Plan 4.1.1 Group.

Encore Demo

Thanks to everyone who attended the Encore Demo. Please post your thoughts about this resource discovery product. Staff input will be valuable to the Strategic Plan 4.1.1 Group.

Primo Demo

Thanks to everyone who attended the Primo Demo. Please post your thoughts about this resource discovery product. Staff input will be valuable to the Strategic Plan 4.1.1 Group.

Endeca Demo

Thanks to everyone who attended the Endeca Demo. Please post your thoughts about this resource discovery product. Staff input will be valuable to the Strategic Plan 4.1.1 Group. Look for blog posts available for comment after each future demo.

"Designing the future -- Library Systems and Data Formats"

I thought the futurelib Designing the future -- Library Systems and Data Formats Wiki was a treasure trove of things to consider regarding next-gen systems. Not only is there a section on Next Generation Catalog, but perhaps more importantly a section on Next Generation Data Format. This appears to be largely the work of Karen Coyle.

The DLF's "ILS Discovery Interfaces"

I thought this would be of interest to our group:

"In 2007-2008, the Digital Library Federation (DLF) convened a Task Group to recommend standard interfaces for integrating the data and services of the Integrated Library System (ILS) with new applications supporting user discovery. This page gives access to the group's recommendation, related materials, and information on followup activities."

The Task Group's official recommendation, An API for effective interoperation between integrated library systems and external discovery applications, (revision 1.1) was released in December 2008.