Library OPACS and Me: A Love-Hate Relationship

This week marks the beginning of spring classes at Syracuse. In the class discussion for my class on classification (did I say class enough just now?) we were asked this question by the professor:

How were you frustrated/satisfied with information searching systems? List any complaints, grumbles, frustrations, ...

What are the priority items on your wish list if the system needs to be improved?

And here is my response, which I thought would be good blog material:

As no one else has touched on this, I feel as if I should talk about my myriad frustrations with using library OPACS. (Online Public Access Catalogs)

First, as many people have pointed out in their database complaints - there is no standardized way of searching OPACS - each is a bit (or very) different from the other, requiring the user to search in a different fashion.

Second, the lack of permalinks to the bibliographic records in an OPAC is really frustrating. In fulfilling some reference queries for patrons, I would like to link to the bibliographic record in the catalog - but the link is only good for about 24 hours.

Third, touching on the idea of relevancy, I feel like social cataloging/tagging and LOC SH (Library of Congress' Subject Headings) need to be integrated in some meaningful way. Knowledge of those headings is helpful, but many people don't have knowledge of them. This lack of knowledge leads to the need to create some method in which the subject headings can be linked to terms generated by the users (increasing their relevancy).

Furthermore, it seems that the idea that, for the most part, libraries "lock up" their bibliographic data (outside of OCLC or RLIN, for instance) seems to run counter to the very concept of libraries - the free and unfettered dissemination of information. This data/information should be free for all to share and use.

So, as a prioritized wish-list for a better OPAC would look something like this:

1. Integration of social cataloging tags and subject headings.

2. Standardized searching terms across all OPACs.

3. Free access to bibliographic data.

Permalinks to bibliographic records.

What would your wishlist for an OPAC look like?

PS - I just updated the “library” link up top, check it out, and the accompanying flickr post here:

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