Points of Pain,

Peculiar Possibilities,
& A Patron Paradise
or, A slightly arbitrary
set of hair-brained
ideas

Roy Tennant
California Digital
Library
Pilgrimage to Mecca
Life in the ‘Hood
Our users are increasingly using the
Internet for their information needs…can
you say “Google”?
As the younger generation grows to
adulthood, library funding and support
may be in jeopardy
We’re dying out here — even if it isn’t
immediately apparent
But not all gloom and doom — signs of
dissatisfaction w/Internet information
offers us a window of opportunity
We can and should trade on our
reputation
What You Can Do For Us
In a nutshell: make every library
LOOK HUGE and FEEL PERSONAL
Build infrastructure and services that no
single library can build — create
BUILDING BLOCKS from which we can
create services
Know when to be out front and when to
let us be out front
Offer compelling central services that
drive users to their local library
What Can We Do?
Out Google Google:
Return Google results along with a good
deal more
Build on our strengths:
Centralized metadata (WorldCat)
Dispersed service points (local libraries)
Think imaginatively
Ripoff good ideas from wherever they can
be found
The Basic Questions
What do libraries want?
What do library users want?
How can we get that for them (us)?
What Libraries Want
To provide for the information
needs of a clientele
To build useful collections and
provide effective services
To be used
What Library Users Want
To find what they want
To find as much or as little as they
need
To experience as little pain as
possible
To not have their time wasted
To have the option to control their
experience and make informed
decisions
To be effectively advised
Basic User Truths
Only librarians like to search,
everyone else likes to find
A cite in the hand is worth 10 in the
database
Good enough is just that
Pain avoidance is a powerful
motivator
Points of Pain
Library catalogs suck as information
finding tools
There are too many possible sources
to search them separately
There is little advice about which
resource to search
There is no advice about which is
better (we know, but we’re not
telling)
Why Library Catalogs Fail as
Information Finding Tools
They are unable to search the entire
universe of information
Local catalogs often lack books that can be
requested
They have too little information about items
Most are Unable to accept multiple
metadata formats
Many have hostile user interfaces
(complexity is often a sign of lazy or
incompetent design)
Union catalogs often have multiple records
What Better Case for
FRBR?
FRBR: Functional Requirements of
Bibliographic Records, from IFLA
A recasting of bibliographic description
into levels:
Work
Expression (translations)
Manifestation (editions)
Item (copies)
Both RLG and OCLC are experimenting
with it
Making the Pie
Other A&I Dbs

OAI Repos.
DL Colls.

The Web

Integration Engine WorldCat

Making the Pie: Metadata
Metadata: cataloging by those paid better
than librarians
Metadata: Structured information about
an object or collection of objects
We must become very, very proficient
with metadata — creating, harvesting,
transforming, serving; your Metadata
Switch is very important work
MARC is just the beginning, and unless
we’re careful, will be too limiting; we
must be proficient with Dublin Core,
 Encoded Stored
in TEI File System
XML

Search
Full Text Index
 Encoded Stored
in TEI File System
XML

Search
Full Text Index
Structure
Selected
Fields Search
Extracted Index
Records Stored
Created METS
Repository
Project
Profile
MODS record

UC Press record

Library UC Press
Catalog Database
 Encoded Stored
in TEI File System
XML

Search
Full Text Index
Structure
Selected
Fields Search
Extracted Index
Records Stored
Created METS
Repository
Project User
queries
Profile
MODS record

UC Press record

Library UC Press
Catalog Database
 Encoded Stored
in TEI File System
XML

Search
Full Text Index
Structure
Selected
Fields Search
Extracted Index
Records Stored
Created METS Results
Repository in XML
Project XSLT

Profile
MODS record

UC Press record User requests

book

Library UC Press
Catalog Database
 Encoded Stored
in TEI File System
XML

Search
Full Text Index
Structure Java
servlet
Selected
Fields Search
Extracted Index
Records Stored
Created METS
Repository
User requests
Project
book segment
Profile
MODS record METS record in XML
UC Press record
XSLT

Library UC Press
Catalog Database
 Encoded Stored
in TEI File System
XML

Search
Full Text Index
Structure Java
servlet
Selected
Fields Search
Extracted Index
Records Stored
Created METS
Repository
Project XSLT
Book
Profile
MODS record segment
returned
UC Press record

Library UC Press
Catalog Database
Methods for Encompassing
Resources
“Ingesting” — centralized by an
individually tailored process
“Harvesting” — centralized by a
process applicable to an entire
class of resources
“Crawling” — software-based HTTP
fetching
“Dynamically Queried” —
broadcast search at the moment of
user need
Making the Pie Principles
We never metadata we didn’t like
(metadata R Us)
Decentralize metadata
maintenance whenever possible
Centralize metadata searching
whenever possible — Federate,
then slice and dice
Metadata can be both mined and
enhanced
Slicing the Pie
Slicing can be pre-selected or
dynamic
By:
region (e.g., Australia)
topic area
format type
ease and rapidity of access
When to Slice the Pie
Before searching:
Select general topic area
After searching:
Results clustering
Search within results
Slicing the Pie Principles
Strive to serve only that which will
feed the hunger
Few will want the whole pie; some
will want it sliced; others will want
to slice it themselves
Slicing must happen regardless of
how it was made
Serving the Pie
Provide ways for users to “drill down” in
search results
Guide the user to useful subject terms
Cluster search results
Rank by:
Numbers of holding libraries
Usage, e.g., “click through count”
Weights assigned by librarians, or
reflected in book reviews
Serving the Pie
We need ways to keep librarians
happy without enraging patrons
(e.g., “advanced search” option)
Searching is an iterative process
A good search result is not the end,
but the beginning (e.g., provide
ability to format a bibliography,
download or print the citations)
Serving the Pie Principles
Best served by those who know the
consumer
Global services can (and should be)
locally branded to maximize
service delivery options for end
users
Software “skins” are not new
Things We Must Do
No more business as usual!
Out Google Google (Google w/
added value)
Get good at sucking things up
Be good producers and consumers
of metadata
Work together more broadly and
deeply
Be user focused, but not user
driven
Hire out of our ranks, read out of
Recap
Help us LOOK HUGE and FEEL
PERSONAL
Think building blocks, extensibility,
flexibility, skins, richer and more
diverse metadata
Federate, then slice and dice
Free WorldCat!