Web 2.0 is fundamentally changing the expectations of many library users. This may make many library management systems (or rather, the OPAC interface our users see) look increasingly creaky, and resemble the stereotype of librarians, i.e. unfriendly but with hidden powers.

At the same time libraries are watching their budgets carefully, and are not keen to undergo the major project that changing their LMS would be.

This is where a number of companies and products step in, offering to revitalise the OPAC. The recent JISC report ‘Library Management Systems: Investing wisely in a period of disruptive change’ pointed towards this raft of options as a way of solving some LMS problems:

“Others have gained valuable experience through implementing Vertical Search products. The market for complementary products is widening as the LMS vendors have realised it is to their advantage that their ‘add-ons’ work with the LMS from other vendors.”

Commercial discovery tools like Aquabrowser and Primo aim to provide intuitive search interfaces so users can access all resources from within one interface. Not all the options are commercial though – there are many open source projects such as Vufind.

It is also possible to jazz up the OPAC using OPAC enrichment services such as the services offered by Syndetic Solutions. Or you could incorporate virtual shelf browsing i.e. seeing images of books next to each other – see the University of Huddersfield OPAC for an example – scroll down for the shelf browser. (See here for some information on how it was done.)

Aquabrowser demo

Last week I attended a demonstration of one of the commercial product suppliers, Aquabrowser.

To get an idea of what the OPAC may look like if parsed by Aquabrowser go to the list of customers here and follow some of the OPAC links. For an FE option, have a look at the Croydon College implementation. Bear in mind that many libraries have also purchased OPAC enrichment services, so some of the features may not be part of Aquabrowser.

Click to enlarge – a basic results screen with subliminal messages

In the screenshot above you can see the three main features.

1. Search box and results in the centre.
2. A ‘Refine’ box on the right to narrow down results.
3. A ‘Discover’ box on the left which provides alternative terms (synonyms, related terms, variant spellings and so on) which can also be used to refine the results, or to begin a whole new search. Note that this can show up flaws and inconsistencies in the institution’s cataloguing – hopefully an opportunity to correct them!

I’ll just post my immediate thoughts after using Aquabrowser for a while.

The good

• RSS: Aquabrowser generates flexible RSS feeds with no fuss. It is possible to generate a feed for a particular simple search, or a refined search; and for the feed to include all items or just new ones.
• Accessibility: The ‘Discover’ box is animated, and therefore not suitable for screen readers. However Aquabrowser has an alternative URL which generates an interface suitable for screen-readers, due to being text-based and with a revised box order. Click to enlarge the screenshot below to see what it looks like.

Possible concerns:

• Admin: Aquabrowser does not work live from the bibliographic data – every night you have to do a bulk upload. Aquabrowser works from that, though communicates live with the LMS regarding circulation data and status. Obviously this can be automated, but is another procedure.
• Stats and reports: Aquabrowser generates its own usage statistics. However because it is working off a database dump none of those statistics will have been recorded by the LMS – apart from circulation statistics etc where AquaBrowser transfers to the host LMS. So if you offer Aquabrowser AND the traditional native OPAC to users, as some institutions do, then your search and access statistics will be split between the two systems. Even if you don’t offer a native interface to the OPAC, the lending statistics will be in one system (the LMS) and the search statistics elsewhere (Aquabrowser) so it will be difficult to run reports combining the two.
• My Discoveries is a social networking add-on for Aquabrowser, enabling reviews, book lists and tagging. The idea is good, and it can be used as a system for reading lists. However the data and accounts are not hosted by the subscribing institution; and the system is not Shibboleth compliant. Users have to create an extra account (on the system seller’s database), which is an inconvenience for users and system administrators. Increasingly libraries are looking to the future with single sign-on systems, so it is a shame that the idea here is good, but the implementation is flawed.
• Powered By: It may just be me, but I find overt publicity of brand names to be a distraction. Aquabrowser says ‘Powered by Aquabrowser’ on most screens, which is something I find irritating. If I am paying a company for something I shouldn’t have to advertise their products on my institutional screens and systems as well. The only brand that I want to show is the brand of my library service, but the person demonstrating Aquabrowser said it is not possible to remove it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 7:30 pm and is filed under LMS, Web 2.0, resource discovery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.