In Marcia Deddins' article "Overview of Integrated Library Systems," the author opens with discussing the progress that Integrated Library Systems have made in the past years and how well they fit with the library's system goals of providing content to users easily. Deddins discusses the importance of the ILS and how it truly influences and shapes the library itself--without the ILS and the work that goes into creating it, libraries would not be as efficient or well-used as they are. Deddins goes on to look at three different ILS vendors (making the caveat beforehand that vendors tend to put a fine gloss on their product and make you hear only the great things): Endeavor, Innovative Interfaces, and SIRSI. It seems as though the purpose of putting these different vendors descriptions of their own products up against each other is to see the similarities and differences between them, and also to show what they are trying to do to help the library. What is similar about all of these vendors is their stress on integration of different library materials and metadata. All of them claim that their product is the perfect integrated system for data management and for allowing for a better digital library environment. But each of these vendors has a different stress overall--for Endeavor, they focus on the notion of creating a stronger digital library in which the searching process is simpler, as is individualization and access. For Innovative Interfaces, they focus more on the integration of metadata, and the more technology-based advances that they are making. Finally, SIRSI has a completely different pitch in that they bring it all to the user and the people rather than the technology, making it seem as though they are more interested in helping the user than in innovation for itself. At the end of the article, Deddins concludes that the innovations that are occuring in ILS today are great opportunities for librarians and IT professionals to collaborate and innovate so that the ILS will become stronger and more user-friendly, accomplishing the goals that are set for the library.
This leads into the second article, "Re-Integrating the 'Integrated' Library System" by Marshall Breeding. Breeding is dismayed at the route that the ILS has taken in recent years, seemingly upstaged by Google and "a la carte" automation utilities that defeat the purpose of an ILS. Breeding's biggest issue seems to be that with all of these a la carte tools that are being introduced to libraries and are bought up and used more and more as the need for integration becomes stronger and stronger, libraries are moving farther away from being able to have a more integrated system and save the ILS from becoming defunct. He sees the problem as being the fact that all of these different software applications are not compatible or cohesive, thus not allowing for a more seamless system (which although he admits is impossible, he can see the possibility for better cohesiveness) and turning users away from the ILS which seems complicated and bulky compared to Google's sleekness. Breeding sees two problems standing in the way of a more integrated ILS: Requests for Proposals and the industry itself. Vendors don't want to steer away from the long checklists of things librarians expect out of their systems, even when some of the things asked for hinder best functionality. When it comes to the marketplace, the ILS is expensive and if the add-ons were put into the ILS package as a whole, it would only get more expensive. With limited and shrinking budgets, having an a la carte system for purchases makes it easier for libraries to afford what they need and gives the vendor better profits. At the end of his article, Breeding seems to be optimistic that the ILS will find a way to better integrate with the add-ons libraries require, but does warn that if they don't, more and more users will turn away from using the library as a resource and go straight to Google and Amazon.
The combination of these two articles makes for an interesting discussion: where Deddins seems to have a pretty positive outlook on ILS, Breeding does not, and thinks that there needs to be a strong upheaval of the traditional ILS in order to keep up with web technology. What both do seem to realize is the need and opportunity for collaboration between the IT profession and librarians in order to get users to continue using the ILS that libraries provide. It seems as though most of the articles we read about library technology are constantly bringing up the fact that Google and Amazon have a leg-up over libraries because of their sleekness, and we need to revamp our own systems to become more user friendly, inviting more people to use them. Whether this is through some tweaking on the part of the vendors or librarians, or if we need a complete overhaul of the ILS is a question that is under serious debate. A discussion question that arises out of these two articles might be: to what extent do libraries need to mirror Google and Amazon? Will becoming more like them take away from the library's goal and the basic structure of the ILS as we've known it? Is there something that can be done when it comes to the vendors (e.g. rising costs, asking for different features, etc.)?
Bibliography
Deddins, Marcia. "Overview of Integrated Library Systems." EDUCAUSE Evolving Technologies Committee. 2002. http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/DEC0201.pdf.
Breeding, Marshall. "Re-Integrating the Integrated Library System." Computers in Libraries 25.1 (2002):28-30.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Second Blog Post
Calvin Mooers' theory (or better known as Mooers' Law) is an interesting and troubling one when looked at from a librarian's point of view. As librarians, we are trained to (and often inherently drawn to) love information and we study throughout our entire careers, even after graduate school, how to find, use, interpret, and seek out information. It is the definition behind the work that we do. Although this is true, what Mooers proposes as a law is just as necessary to a librarian's repertoire as knowing how to find and distribute information. Mooers' Law posits that people will not use information retrieval systems if it is more painful for them to actually have the information. Mooers makes a good point--oftentimes, information is a burden. There are many implications and responsibilities when it comes to having information--things need to be sought out, interpreted, applied to an issue, or just basically read, seen, or heard. These things take time and energy, thus, information retrieval systems are often ignored by the public unless they absolutely must have a certain piece of information. This Law has many implications for librarians--we need to make sure that when people do use the information retrieval systems that we provide for them, the systems need to be clear, easy to use, and allow the user to get the information they need as quickly, accurately, concisely, and easy as we can. Although I was not fully aware of Mooers' Law prior to reading this article, I believe that the knowledge that comes from it is extremely necessary to librarians and their thinking on systems, which brings us to the second article that we read.
In Antelman, Lynema, and Pace's article "Toward a Twenty-First Century Library Catalog," the authors explain the issues that are inherent to the current library catalog, explaining the first- and second-generation online catalogs, and the need for further advancement of these online catalogs. In all things, librarians need to be thinking of their users. This may seem like a basic principle to live by as a librarian, but oftentimes it seems as though we forget who we are serving. What the North Carolina State University did was to take a step back from their daily routine, and really analyze the ways in which the user was and was not being served by the catalog. Because the catalog is often the access point for users, it is important that it be relevant and easy to use, allowing for both discovery and locational information for resources. NCSU, unafraid of taking calculated risks, attempted to integrate the Endeca's Information Access Platform, which is a platform used by web sites, which make them more appealing to users. NCSU wanted to take the searching methods employed by this platform, and make it easier for users to find the most relevant information for them, enhancing browsability, improving subject access, and generally making the searching process more user-friendly. NCSU attempted to accomplish this by employing spell correction, "did you mean..." responses, the implementation of "dimensions" that allow users to redefine their searches by clicking on different facets to narrow it down, relevance ranking (which was the thing most appreciated by users, it seems) and better browsability (allowing for searching without having to enter a query). After the implementation of the new service, the university did a study to see if users were finding more relevant things faster than they had before, and found that generally, the students were happy with the improved system. Although this new "discovery portal" OPAC has come a long way from what OPACs have been, there are still things that need to be improved such as the widening of the scope, an ability to use more colloquial language in search queries, and a way for users to supply feedback on the relevance of the material they found. However, even with the kinks to work out and more advancements to be made, there have still been significant strides made with these new developments.
Placing these two articles side-by-side says a lot for the state of information seeking through systems today and what we need to be focusing on when we create or attempt to improve our systems. Mooers' Law states basically that users take the path of least resistance, as it were, and will not seek out information if it is in any way painful to them. At the end of his article, Mooers makes a good point, stating that although his Law is true, there will be times when information is needed and sought, and for those people, the systems need to be as user-friendly as possible. There is nothing we as librarians can do about the outside sources of people not wanting information, but we can improve our own systems to make the process less burdensome and painful for those who use our information retrieval systems. NCSU has realized this notion and has gone so far as to implement a new system into their OPAC, allowing users more control over their search, and allowing for relevance ranking and "did you mean..." queries that allow the users to have a more narrowed focus and thus find the relevant information that they need with less sifting and sorting through the things they do not need. I think that what we as librarians can take away from these articles is a need to focus on the user, understand the way they search and their motivations, and cater to them, allowing them a smoother process, thus bringing them back to our systems instead of turning to the Internet. I think that one question that can be asked from these readings comes from something that Antelman, et al., raised: users do not seem to understand HOW to search properly, and that is part of the problem with them being able to get over the barriers that controlled vocabularies and subject headings seem to hold for them. So, how can we use our understanding Mooers' Law, and the implications of the study done at NCSU to better improve the knowledge that the users have? If they do not know the difference between a subject and a keyword, how can we educate them to make their searches clearer while still using these new methods to help them search? Is it still our job to teach Boolean searching if we are coming up with new methods of searching? Something to think about, perhaps.
Bibliography:
Antelman, Kristin, Emily Lynema, & Andrew Pace. "Toward a Twenty-First Century Library Catalog." Information Technology & Libraries 25.3 (2006): 128-139.
Mooers, C.N. "Mooers' Law or, Why Some Retrieval Systems Are Used and Others Are Not." Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 23.1 (1996): 22-23.
In Antelman, Lynema, and Pace's article "Toward a Twenty-First Century Library Catalog," the authors explain the issues that are inherent to the current library catalog, explaining the first- and second-generation online catalogs, and the need for further advancement of these online catalogs. In all things, librarians need to be thinking of their users. This may seem like a basic principle to live by as a librarian, but oftentimes it seems as though we forget who we are serving. What the North Carolina State University did was to take a step back from their daily routine, and really analyze the ways in which the user was and was not being served by the catalog. Because the catalog is often the access point for users, it is important that it be relevant and easy to use, allowing for both discovery and locational information for resources. NCSU, unafraid of taking calculated risks, attempted to integrate the Endeca's Information Access Platform, which is a platform used by web sites, which make them more appealing to users. NCSU wanted to take the searching methods employed by this platform, and make it easier for users to find the most relevant information for them, enhancing browsability, improving subject access, and generally making the searching process more user-friendly. NCSU attempted to accomplish this by employing spell correction, "did you mean..." responses, the implementation of "dimensions" that allow users to redefine their searches by clicking on different facets to narrow it down, relevance ranking (which was the thing most appreciated by users, it seems) and better browsability (allowing for searching without having to enter a query). After the implementation of the new service, the university did a study to see if users were finding more relevant things faster than they had before, and found that generally, the students were happy with the improved system. Although this new "discovery portal" OPAC has come a long way from what OPACs have been, there are still things that need to be improved such as the widening of the scope, an ability to use more colloquial language in search queries, and a way for users to supply feedback on the relevance of the material they found. However, even with the kinks to work out and more advancements to be made, there have still been significant strides made with these new developments.
Placing these two articles side-by-side says a lot for the state of information seeking through systems today and what we need to be focusing on when we create or attempt to improve our systems. Mooers' Law states basically that users take the path of least resistance, as it were, and will not seek out information if it is in any way painful to them. At the end of his article, Mooers makes a good point, stating that although his Law is true, there will be times when information is needed and sought, and for those people, the systems need to be as user-friendly as possible. There is nothing we as librarians can do about the outside sources of people not wanting information, but we can improve our own systems to make the process less burdensome and painful for those who use our information retrieval systems. NCSU has realized this notion and has gone so far as to implement a new system into their OPAC, allowing users more control over their search, and allowing for relevance ranking and "did you mean..." queries that allow the users to have a more narrowed focus and thus find the relevant information that they need with less sifting and sorting through the things they do not need. I think that what we as librarians can take away from these articles is a need to focus on the user, understand the way they search and their motivations, and cater to them, allowing them a smoother process, thus bringing them back to our systems instead of turning to the Internet. I think that one question that can be asked from these readings comes from something that Antelman, et al., raised: users do not seem to understand HOW to search properly, and that is part of the problem with them being able to get over the barriers that controlled vocabularies and subject headings seem to hold for them. So, how can we use our understanding Mooers' Law, and the implications of the study done at NCSU to better improve the knowledge that the users have? If they do not know the difference between a subject and a keyword, how can we educate them to make their searches clearer while still using these new methods to help them search? Is it still our job to teach Boolean searching if we are coming up with new methods of searching? Something to think about, perhaps.
Bibliography:
Antelman, Kristin, Emily Lynema, & Andrew Pace. "Toward a Twenty-First Century Library Catalog." Information Technology & Libraries 25.3 (2006): 128-139.
Mooers, C.N. "Mooers' Law or, Why Some Retrieval Systems Are Used and Others Are Not." Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 23.1 (1996): 22-23.
Monday, September 6, 2010
First Blog Assignment
Reading the two articles "The Evolution of LIS and Enabling Technologies" and "Environmental Scan: A Report on Trends and Technologies Affecting Libraries" were very enlightening on the topic of technology in libraries in different ways. "The Evolution of LIS and Enabling Technologies" was interesting for its look at the past when it comes to technologies in libraries. Something that I truly believe in is the importance of an examination and understanding of the past in order to prepare ourselves and attempt to anticipate the future and understand the present. Kochtanel and Matthews dive into the past to flesh out the stages that LIS has gone through and help to define what the term Library Information Systems means. Terms such as this one often are ubiquitous to the point of losing the meaning, but the authors do a great job of helping us to understand what is meant by the term. Kochtanel and Matthews understand LIS as the entity which brings content and users together, providing the service that defines the library. I believe, and it seems that Kochtanel and Matthews do as well, that libraries need to focus on the user and what they need (without the user, what is the point of having a library in the first place?) and creating and adopting library systems functions that are both helpful to the user and easy to use can only increase the user's awareness of the library offerings and perhaps be an entrance point for people who do not already use the library's offerings. Another interesting distinction that the authors make is in the ways that libraries adopt new technologies. Their assessment and commentary on page 7 on this topic proved to be a thought-provoking one for me--if I was the head of a library, how would I want to approach new technologies? Is it worth it to risk a failure and be the "bleeding edge" library? I know that I certainly would not want to be on the "trailing edge!" This distinction should give librarians something to consider in adopting new technologies. One final thing that I really gleaned from this article was in the "three phases or periods of innovation in the design of several computing configurations" (Kochtanel 10). I find it interesting and telling of the library profession that we have moved from periods that focus on collections and content to one that focuses on users. Through my LIS education, I have become increasingly interested in outreach and the users of libraries, and it is good to know and understand the ways in which library systems are becoming more user-friendly and user-focused. I thought that this article did a great job of examining the past of LIS and helping me to understand how important the past is in fueling the future.
Pairing this article with the article entitled "Environmental Scan: A Report on Trends and Technologies Affecting Libraries" made for interesting reading. Arnold Hirshon attempts to forecast the future of libraries in the context of technology, which is made most effective by his inclusion of all aspects of libraries in his predictions and discussions. Hirshon makes clear that his predictions are not comprehensive, and that although his ideas are based on studies and statistics, they are not definitive. Hirshon looks at the future of libraries by splitting his article into five issues that libraries will be facing: societal and economic, technology, education and learning, information content, and library leadership and organization. It is interesting that technology comprises only one of these issues, but it certainly informs most of the issues with these other factors. Some of the most interesting and thought-provoking issues that Hirshon discusses were on Generation Y, societal changes, gaming and augmented reality, e-books, and a refocus on users. Each of these issues are informed by new technologies--Generation Y is one that have had technology around them throughout their entire lives, and libraries have to learn how to adapt their older ways to suit the new demands and expectations of a generation of "digital natives." Hirshon discuses the JISC report in which one of the conclusions was that librarians need to better understand how these new users of library services search and retrieve and use information in the light of the Internet and technology so that their users are getting the best information that they can. The author also comments on the rise of gaming and augmented reality in learning environments and how it is effecting the way that people learn and interact with their information, while inferring that libraries need to analyze these methods and incorporate some aspect of them into their presence in order to keep the attention of their users. Hirshon takes a look at the more pronounced presence of e-books and how they are effecting budgets, cataloging, and general technology needs. With new technologies like the Nook and Kindle, e-books are becoming more prevalent in our society and libraries need to adapt to this new market and learn how its community responds to them. As I have mentioned before, libraries are changing their focus from collection-based to user-based, which Hirshon seems to approve of, but which he also warns is not to be taken lightly, and management and leadership roles will have to change with this change in focus. Obviously, Hirshon focuses on much more in his article than these points, but I found these to be the most interesting and they made me think about my own use of technology over the years and how it has informed my own research habits and library usage. It seems to me that the overall message Hirshon wants the reader to take away is that libraries are living creatures which change rapidly, and as librarians, it is crucial that we understand them changes and act accordingly in order to benefit our users.
I found both of these articles to be intriguing and thought-provoking, and in thinking about them, I came up with a possible discussion point based on the articles: Social networking has been played up quite a bit over the years, and both articles touch on it (Hirshon's more than Kochtanel and Matthews) but I'm wondering what the influence of social networking will be on the future of libraries, and how libraries and librarians can possibly foresee their role in a world that values social networking in the ways that we do now. Although the influence of social networking may not be the same in 10 years, its impact should still be considered an important one in the library world.
Works Cited
Kochtanek, T.R., and J.R. Matthews. "The Evolution of LIS and Enabling Technologies." Chapter 1. Library Information Systems. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2002. 3-13.
Hirshon, Arnold. "Environmental Scan: A Report on Trends and Technologies Affecting Libraries." NELINET August 2008. 1-12.
Pairing this article with the article entitled "Environmental Scan: A Report on Trends and Technologies Affecting Libraries" made for interesting reading. Arnold Hirshon attempts to forecast the future of libraries in the context of technology, which is made most effective by his inclusion of all aspects of libraries in his predictions and discussions. Hirshon makes clear that his predictions are not comprehensive, and that although his ideas are based on studies and statistics, they are not definitive. Hirshon looks at the future of libraries by splitting his article into five issues that libraries will be facing: societal and economic, technology, education and learning, information content, and library leadership and organization. It is interesting that technology comprises only one of these issues, but it certainly informs most of the issues with these other factors. Some of the most interesting and thought-provoking issues that Hirshon discusses were on Generation Y, societal changes, gaming and augmented reality, e-books, and a refocus on users. Each of these issues are informed by new technologies--Generation Y is one that have had technology around them throughout their entire lives, and libraries have to learn how to adapt their older ways to suit the new demands and expectations of a generation of "digital natives." Hirshon discuses the JISC report in which one of the conclusions was that librarians need to better understand how these new users of library services search and retrieve and use information in the light of the Internet and technology so that their users are getting the best information that they can. The author also comments on the rise of gaming and augmented reality in learning environments and how it is effecting the way that people learn and interact with their information, while inferring that libraries need to analyze these methods and incorporate some aspect of them into their presence in order to keep the attention of their users. Hirshon takes a look at the more pronounced presence of e-books and how they are effecting budgets, cataloging, and general technology needs. With new technologies like the Nook and Kindle, e-books are becoming more prevalent in our society and libraries need to adapt to this new market and learn how its community responds to them. As I have mentioned before, libraries are changing their focus from collection-based to user-based, which Hirshon seems to approve of, but which he also warns is not to be taken lightly, and management and leadership roles will have to change with this change in focus. Obviously, Hirshon focuses on much more in his article than these points, but I found these to be the most interesting and they made me think about my own use of technology over the years and how it has informed my own research habits and library usage. It seems to me that the overall message Hirshon wants the reader to take away is that libraries are living creatures which change rapidly, and as librarians, it is crucial that we understand them changes and act accordingly in order to benefit our users.
I found both of these articles to be intriguing and thought-provoking, and in thinking about them, I came up with a possible discussion point based on the articles: Social networking has been played up quite a bit over the years, and both articles touch on it (Hirshon's more than Kochtanel and Matthews) but I'm wondering what the influence of social networking will be on the future of libraries, and how libraries and librarians can possibly foresee their role in a world that values social networking in the ways that we do now. Although the influence of social networking may not be the same in 10 years, its impact should still be considered an important one in the library world.
Works Cited
Kochtanek, T.R., and J.R. Matthews. "The Evolution of LIS and Enabling Technologies." Chapter 1. Library Information Systems. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2002. 3-13.
Hirshon, Arnold. "Environmental Scan: A Report on Trends and Technologies Affecting Libraries." NELINET August 2008. 1-12.
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