IUG 2006 presentation: Designing an OPAC for Web 2.0 (also available as a PDF with space for notes)

Web 2.0 and other “2.0” monikers have become loaded terms recently. But as we look back at the world wide web of 1996, there can be little doubt that today’s web is better and more useful. Indeed, that seems to be the conclusion millions of Americans are making, as current estimates show over 200 million users in the US, including 87% of youth 12-17.

Web 2.0 isn’t driven by technology, it’s driven by that critical mass of users. And while social software and AJAX enabled web applications get most of our attention, people are turning to the internet for some very mundane everyday activities that were little more than science fiction in 1996. The commonality of internet banking, for example, reflects the trust users now have in the security and reliability of online services.

But the web has weathered so much hype and hyperbole that it may be difficult to recognize its arrival as a true cultural force. Computing has become so common that children often learn to type before they learn to write. And the instant, self-service access to worlds of information and services is changing industries — a fact we can see clearly in the decline of the role of travel agents, even while air travel continues to grow.

Kevin Kelly, in a Wired Magazine story described this apparent blindness:

The accretion of tiny marvels can numb us to the arrival of the stupendous. [thanks to Josh Porter for alerting me to this]

So the question of how to design a web OPAC for today is a question of how to design an information service in a world rich with information services and filled with users who make information seeking — though not necessarily at libraries — part of their everyday lives.

note: this is an update of my ALA Midwinter presentation.

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ALA Midwinter IUG SIG Presentation: Designing an OPAC for Web 2.0

update: PDF version with space for notes

Web 2.0 and other “2.0” monikers have become loaded terms recently. But as we look back at the world wide web of 1996, there can be little doubt that today’s web is better and more useful. Indeed, that seems to be the conclusion millions of Americans are making, as current estimates show over 200 million users in the US, including 87% of youth 12-17.

Web 2.0 isn’t driven by technology, it’s driven by that critical mass of users. And while social software and AJAX enabled web applications get most of our attention, people are turning to the internet for some very mundane everyday activities that were little more than science fiction in 1996. The commonality of internet banking, for example, reflects the trust users now have in the security and reliability of online services.

But the web has weathered so much hype and hyperbole that it may be difficult to recognize its arrival as a true cultural force. Computing has become so common that children often learn to type before they learn to write. And the instant, self-service access to worlds of information and services is changing industries — a fact we can see clearly in the decline of the role of travel agents, even while air travel continues to grow.

Kevin Kelly, in a Wired Magazine story described this apparent blindness:

The accretion of tiny marvels can numb us to the arrival of the stupendous. [thanks to Josh Porter for alerting me to this]

So the question of how to design a web OPAC for today is a question of how to design an information service in a world rich with information services and filled with users who make information seeking — though not necessarily at libraries — part of their everyday lives.

ala, ala midwinter, ala midwinter 2006, iii, iug, lib 2.0, libraries, library, library 2.0, library catalog, online catalog, opac, opac 2.0, presentation, web 2.0, web opac

I think I’ve been avoiding commenting on this issue for weeks because it hits so close to home. First I read it in BiblioAcid, then Jenny Levine picked it up, then Richard Ackerman picked it up at the Science Library Pad: library catalogs are broken, and there’s no amount of adding pictures or fiddling with colors that will fix them.

I nibbled at the edges of this in my IUG conference presentation, but I didn’t say it as well or as clearly as Roy Tennant did in his widely quoted April 15 Library Journal column:

Recently I viewed a library catalog redesign before it went public. This was the first major change in many years, and it turned out to be quite an improvement to the look and feel of the system. But despite this, it still sucks. Badly.

I don’t know how much time was spent on this cosmetic facelift, but until the deeper problems that plague this system are addressed, users will remain poorly served. Librarians appear to be afflicted with a type of myopia. We see only minor, easy-to-make corrections instead of changes that will truly affect the user experience. We ask our vendors to tweak this or that to make our lives easier, while the users are left to founder on an interface that only a librarian could love.

Thing is, we’re about to go live with our own much updated OPAC, the first redesign in many years, and Roy’s points are right on. I’ve had complaints about the limitations of our OPAC and the reticence of the vendor to support customers who are seeking to address the problems identified by Roy and others, but now I find it nearly impossible to continue “polishing the turd.”

Little things always crop up just when you think you’re done with a project, but increasingly I want to say: put this in perspective, we’ve got to cut the line on this and go live with what we’ve got now so we can invest our time into fixing the real problems. Our students are using Google not because they’re dumb or lazy, but because we are. The limitations of the OPAC and our inability to think beyond what the vendor offers us is leading to a narcissism of small differences where we argue about where to put the cover art for an item in an attempt to make it look like Amazon, but forget that we need to make it work as well as Amazon or Google.

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