SLA 2003: New York City

by Terese Leber

What a grand time! I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge with Susan Johnson, then instead of going to my already-paid-for field trip, we continued to walk from Battery Park and Ground Zero to Central Park, zigzagging through Chinatown, Little Italy (yum!), Soho, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, East Village, Theater District --- you name it, we shopped it. Empire State Building observatory was cool because we could see how far we'd traveled. But maybe the best was last: a sunset carriage ride through Central Park to Strawberry Fields and a drink at the Tavern on the Green. Our traditional Hawaii Nite dinner was at the Russian Samovar, where Linda Sjogren, Susan Johnson and I drank ginger, apple, and horseradish vodkas while the pianist sang Russian songs. More Museums, Broadway shows, Restaurants, oh my!

Serendipitously, 3 sessions I attended reinforced each other - each based on the theme of making our library catalogs more user-friendly, even google-like:

Roy Tennant - Our Digital Future
"Only librarians like to search, everyone else likes to find." Users want to find, to experience, to feel in control, and to be effectively advised. They do not want to have their time wasted. These he calls "Basic User Truths." In this effort to become more user-centric and less collection-centric, we need to outdo Google by supplying what users have come to expect from their online experience:
- a simple search box
- access to most of what they need in ONE PLACE
- some automatic sorts, filters, groups, and/or some they can apply themselves
- fault-tolerant systems, i.e. those that suggest what I may want if the system can't return exactly what I asked for

Generally, library catalogs "suck" because they are only a small subset of the total, they are MARC only, there is too little information in records to make a decision, and they have hostile interfaces. This quote I will always remember: "MARC MUST DIE!" As a cataloger, that make me sit up and listen. He meant that MARC is too primitive/limiting and should give way to modern metadata schemas. One hopeful quote: OCLC is the future (it's Dublin Core). Other standards to stay aware of include MODS, METS, and FRBR.

In addition, we should do as much as we can to help users find their way: Pathfinders with advice on what to use/when, subject access to OPACS for browsing. He pointed to the University of California Digital Library's tailor-made portals based on user needs or subject area. Important buzzwords: Federated (or broadcast) search. Defined as bringing together disparate portals into one spot.

Stephen Abram - What's Sizzle and What's Fizzle
As he usually does, Stephen takes librarians on a whirlwind tour of nearly every fad and serious technology that is currently on the market. He touched on elearning, peer-to-peer filesharing, instant messaging, information seeking with visualization technologies, wikis, blogs, mobile devices, intelligent linking, tablet pcs and more. He noted that we are swimming in an information ocean, not moving down an information highway. Catch it at http://www.micromedia.ca/presentations/SLANY-Sizzle-Fizzle.pdf.

Because he has a teenaged daughter, Stephen is acutely aware of how young users expect ubiquitous access to information whether it be on their cell phones or through IM. In the same breath he is pointing out how slow libraries are to react to major shifts in information-seeking-behavior due to rapidly advancing technological innovations.

Remove the barriers to our OPACS, he says. Stimulate them, he says. What works for librarians rarely works for users. Remember, we are not the model learner. Only 20% of learners are text-based. Be dynamic. Information should move, static content is the pits!

Where is the Catalog Going? - The view from OCLC and Endeavor Info Systems
The Future of the Catalog - Shelly Hostetler, Voyager Product Manager
The Library Catalog: Does it Have a Future? - Gary Houk, OCLC VP Cataloging Services.

Again, reinforcing post-MARC standards, a user-friendly catalog interface, user-centric vs collection-centric. Take a look at the .ppt presentation at http://www.library.northwestern.edu/transportation/slatran/newyork.html.

For more presentations from the 2003 SLA Annual Conference in New York City, go to http://www.sla.org/content/Events/03confpresentations.cfm