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Why library catalogs fail - comments from SLA sessions

As usual there was a wide variety of sessions at SLA but the decision on which to attend were somewhat dictated by where they were being held, as the conference events were spread across three hotels in midtown Manhattan. I chose to concentrate on sessions dealing with the role and the future of the library catalog.

Digital Future (Roy Tennant) - a stimulating session convened by Barbara Holder of SLA-WCC.
Where is the Catalog Going? (OCLC)
Integrated Libraries require Integrated Systems (Open Text Inc.)

I was surprised and somewhat relieved that all these speakers made many of the same comments and recommendations. I think Roy Tennant summed up the call to action with the phrase "surface the content". Library catalog users are used to searching Google and Amazon - how can librarians compete and learn from the success of these two search interfaces? His challenge was to search a library catalog and then search for that same title on Amazon - which gives the user more useful information? Users are finding relevant titles on Amazon and then going to their local library catalogs for just the location information.

The main points raised at these sessions:

keep it simple - many library catalog search screens are far too busy and contain options that most users do not understand, - who outside a librarian knows what a "corporate author" is. Provide a single search box (like Google) with an option to go to an Advanced screen if required.
provide more than just standard bibliographic information. Include table of contents; abstracts; summaries; images of book covers or links to reviews to allow your users to evaluate the usefulness of a title.
integrate searching across all formats, i.e. do not force users to search for books separately from videos or journals etc.
remember that users do not know the exact wording of an appropriate LC Subject Heading. Group search results by subjects or guide the user by providing topic searches.
consider federated searching of multiple catalogs, the web and other databases - the user generally does not care which library or which service provides the data. Out-Google Google and integrate Google results along with your catalog data.
include records in your catalog for commercial services and databases that you subscribe to, with links for launching the service.
catalog websites and be prepared to grab content such as pdf's and download them to ensure their continued availability.
As Roy Tennant said "get good at sucking things up" - whether it be publishers data from Onix (http://www.bisg.org/onix.html), book reviews, articles, websites. He also had some interesting comments on library standards, i.e.. "MARC must die" as it has outlived its usefulness (for example OCLC is now moving to XML and metadata) and "Z39.50 is like pointing a howitzer at a fly".

The key concepts that all speakers recommended we should be paying attention to were also reassuringly similar:

XML
OAI - PMH : Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/openarchivesprotocol.htm)
FRBR : IFLA's Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr.htm)
METS : Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard (http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets/)
MODS : Metadata Object Description Schema (http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/)
RSS : Rich Site Summary interoperability protocol for integrating newsfeeds and updated content.

According to Roy Tennant, we should be more user focused in the design of our catalog interfaces, but not user driven. We should think imaginatively; read outside of our profession; hire staff who love change and thrive on learning, and of course take responsibility for our own professional development through strategic learning to ensure that we are aware of new tools and standards.

Kathy Bryce is with Andornot Consulting Inc.