K. Antelman, E. Lynema, A. K. Pace (2006). "Toward a Twenty-First Century Library Catalog." Information Technology & Libraries, 25:3. 128-139.

Available free online here.

Summary

After providing a brief summary of the history of online catalogs, Antelman et al. go on to present as a case study the system implemented North Carolina State Universities (NCSU) libraries, the Endeca Information Access Platform. The article enumerates several of the unique ways in which this system has moved beyond the catalogs currently used in many libraries. The Endeca system features such capabilities as relevance ranking of search results, browsing the catalog without entering a search term, and using LC classification as a search dimension. It also allows for significant customization of the user interface. The article goes on to briefly describe some decisions made during the implementation of the Endeca system as well as what parameters were used to assess the new catalog and further additions and changes NCSU libraries would like to make.

What I learned

Firstly, I honestly didn't know that much about how search results were displayed and calculated in more traditional catalogs. That relevance ranking of results is a new feature was a surprise to me. As someone who grew up on search engines, I forget that not all information retrieval systems work on Google's algorithm. I think sometimes that librarians forget that people like me exist, that people expect relevance ranked results. Early in the article, Antelman et al. mention that catalogs have become a place users go to find call numbers. When I started thinking about that, I remember as a child using the catalog at the public library as a way of discovering new information; however, for the last decade or so, the catalog has not been where I go to discover resources but rather where I go to discover the physical location of resources that I learned about elsewhere. This article provided an interesting case study of how library catalogs can move beyond what they have been and become the place where users go to discover not just to locate.

What I am taking away from this article

Online catalogs have a long way to go. The Endeca system described in this article has a lot of great capabilities, but this is just one example of a library moving beyond the staid catalogs with which librarians have grown so comfortable.

Discussion question

On page 32, Antelman et al. write, "[T]he implementation team decided that authority searching (author, title, subject, call number) would be preserved in the new catalog interface. This allowed NCSU to retain the value of authority headings, in addition to providing a familiar interface and approach to known-item searching." I think this "familiar interface and approach" bit is problematic because, while these fields are familiar to librarians and users, they are also not what users most often use. As more and more people go to Google to find information, it seems that the search engine paradigm is the most familiar interface and approach. Are the author, title, subject, and call number fields still necessary? Are they comfortable? Is this something users look for? And if so presently, is it something they will continue to look for in the future?