Library Catalog

Dr. Tomer talked about whether library catalogs are user-friendly in our 2000 class, but it applies to this class as well. This is something I have thought about with regularity for the past seven months. Last October, I had the chance to see Tim Spaulding, creator of Library Thing, give a lecture. He really opened my eyes as to how user-unfriendly most library catalogs actually are. I think his lecture ruffled a lot of feathers in the room, but for me, it really hit home.

The catalog at our library is really not developed with users in mind. The aspect that always gets me into trouble is the search bar. I really hate that it doesn’t guess which words you mean if you happen to type something in incorrectly. It just comes up with no results. I’m sure we lose people right there if they’re searching from home.

The other thing that I’ve found disappointing is our “shopping cart” feature. Yes, you can save titles into a list; however, it does not save the call number. How they can design this feature and not include the call number, I have no idea. It doesn’t seem logical and it’s totally frustrating. I try to pull related books for a program or display and I have to actually write down every call number, rather than click, click, print.

Spaulding mentioned the fact that our catalog does not come up on a Google search. I’m not a computer expert, but I think it’s because your screen will refresh after 30 minutes and totally clear out, which in itself is troublesome. We aren’t marketing ourselves very well through our catalogs. What would happen if someone could Google a title and our catalog would come up, saying the book was available? That would be incredibly fortunate, I think. At least people would think of the library, which is not something everyone does anymore.