Empowering users with a new online catalog

Abstract

In June 1998 Oakland University's library migrated to a new online catalog. In order to determine user acceptance of the new OPAC, students receiving library instruction were asked to complete an open-ended questionnaire eliciting comments on their likes, dislikes and online catalog preference. From the data collected, a second questionnaire was designed and distributed that focused on specific features of the new catalog identified in the first survey. Results indicated that users overwhelmingly preferred the new OPAC and found it easy to use; however, they experienced some difficulty using special features like truncation. The most popular feature of the new catalog was its remote access capability. Secondgeneration OPACs possess features ± such as electronic reserves capabilities and hypertext links ± that are beginning to simplify the search process; but they have not yet developed into the intuitive, comprehensive systems that can empower users to seek information in new ways.

In search of query patterns: A case study of a university OPAC

“…This is interesting because author or title search is more specific and requires a user to know exact author information or the exact first few words of a title before a search can be successfully executed. The finding suggests that certain groups of users knew exactly what they were looking out for and this, to a certain extent, is consistent with Lombardo and Condic's (2000) work which found that most OPAC users could identify whether they required an author or title search, but could not determine when to use subject search.…”

“…Nevertheless, users have been known to encounter difficulties in constructing effective search strategies using these features. For example, Lombardo and Condic (2000) conducted a survey on the new release of the OPAC system at Oakland University and discovered that many of its users were unable to take advantage of more sophisticated search techniques because the features were not intuitive. A separate study of the University of Colorado OPAC also showed that only 8.7% of all queries used advanced search features (Jansen & Pooch, 2000).…”

Users' behaviour patterns in academic libraries' OPACs: a multivariate statistical analysis

“…Others were looking for answers to questions, such as what the users believe they want and what they really need (Wallace, 1993; Novotny, 2004). There have been also studies of users' attitudes and behaviour before and after the implementation of an online catalogue in their library (Martinez‐Arellano, 1996; Dentinger, 1998; Lombardo and Condic, 2000). Furthermore, there were comparative studies of user behaviour over an OPAC and a card catalogue (Sridhar, 2004).…”

Usage patterns in a Greek academic library catalogue

“…Transaction logs, as a method of collecting data, is widely used in libraries (Burton and Hawkins, 1993; Wallace, 1993; Peters, 1996; McGlamery, 1997; Park, 1997; Martinez‐Arellano, 1996; Blecic et al , 1998, 1999; Dentinger, 1998; MacEwan, 1999; Banks, 2000; Lombardo and Condic, 2000; Novotny, 2004; Sridhar, 2004; Villen‐Rueda et al , 2007; Wolfram, 2008) because of its advantage of providing unbiased information about patron's behaviour when searching the OPAC. Patrons are not influenced by the researcher's presence and also their anonymity is protected, as patron identification is not required for the use of OPACs.…”