A bibliographic instruction quiz we used to use asked students how many of Dan Brown’s books could be found in our catalog. The idea was that attentive students would dutifully search by author for “brown, dan,” get redirected to “Brown, Dan 1964-,” and find three books. Indeed, the expected answer was “three.”
As it turns out, [...]
Posted October 12, 2006 by Casey
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information. Tags: catalog, cataloging, error, errors, findability, keyword search, libraries, library, opac, search, searching, usability. Be the first one.
Users want a rich pool from which to search, simplicity, and satisfaction. One does not have to take a 50-minute instruction session to order from Amazon. Why should libraries continue to be so difficult for our users to master?
— from page 8 of the The University of California Libraries Bibliographic Services [...]
Posted March 7, 2006 by Casey
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information. Tags: design philosophy, future libraries, information behavior, information design, libraries, library, library 2.0, search, searching, simplicity, user centered design. 13 Comments.
