I was doing fine with Meredith Farkas’ post last week about grotty library interiors et al., a post revisting a number of observations and ideas that I largely agree with on many levels. But yesterday’s post caught me short with this:
“I created the title of last week’s post (â€It’s Not Just the OPAC that Sucksâ€) because I was feeling like I would bang my head against the wall if I saw one more person write about OPACs sucking. OK! We get it! Now what? It’s great to see people criticizing things and coming up with new ideas (and there were some terrific posts on the woeful state of the OPAC). But then the groupthink takes over and people just echo the same ideas over and over again, without adding anything new or productive. What’s the point of that?”
I’m not asking for affirmation of every single idea I toss on this blog, but I was taken aback that in the space of two blog posts we went from “public libraries shouldn’t smell” to “the sucky OPAC is so fifteen minutes ago.”
First, if there’s one area I would truly love to see groupthink take over, it’s the idea that OPACs suck. Let us all be in lockstep on this issue. Let us march down the avenues on this issue. Let us rise up in arms and repeat: They suck. They suck. They suck.
One thing I know is that an idea can be well-repeated within the early adopters and virtually unknown by the vast communities we work with. From my vantage point, I am not at all sure that as a profession we “get it.” The idea that the OPAC sucks (which is really a broader commentary on service provision and even the state of our profession) is just barely trickling down from the earliest of adopters to the body politic. The question of why they suck–a troubling question, once explored–is a surface only yet being scratched.
Even if we do “get it,” it helps to know (as we do hand-to-hand combat, person by person, hill by hill) that there is a groundswell of agreement that this is an area deserving of our attention. It ain’t easy fighting this battle, and we need all the help our peers can provide us. In real life, moving a library organization from a library-centric to user-centric perspective requires blood, sweat, toil, and tears, and some of the key people you need on board with this idea are not there with you just yet.
I would encourage us all to continue to think, write, talk, and yes, argue about the limits of library technology, and how we get to the next stage. Intelligent critique of what has been the central technology of library services for decades is not some short-term meme we can set aside and move on from.
I’m now off for a day in which in at least one tiny way I hope to do my part to un-suck the incorrigibly unsuckable.
Posted on this day, other years:
- ALA's Youtube Debates - 2009
- Top Technology Trends, ALA Midwinter 2008 - 2008
- ALA OITP Supports Blogging Conference - 2005
- Ye Olde Frustrating ALA - 2005
I definitely was not saying that we should stop talking about the OPAC. I was saying that we have to move forward. And I think sometimes when “groupthink” takes over, we just get mired in inaction because everyone would rather agree than make a novel suggestion. Who in the blogosphere is disagreeing that the OPAC sucks? I think the people who read and write blogs are for the most part blievers. So what is the next step? There isn’t much discussion of what we can do about our sucky OPAC other than mentions of cool things places like Plymouth State and NCSU are doing. But what can I do about it at my little library? Or how can we organize to lobby for a better OPAC?
I agree that probably many librarians do not even think about the OPAC or that it could be better. I had a job interview once where the committee members basically said that their students couldn’t search the catalog because they weren’t that bright (yikes!). But I don’t know if I buy the idea that continually repeating the same thing in the blogosphere will draw attention to the issue from the people you’d want to reach. Chances are, those people are not reading blogs. To spread the message, you need to speak about it at conferences (especially local ones that folks without major professional development budgets can get to) and write about it in the journals that average librarians read (LJ, AL, etc.).
I’m so excited to be in a position with my column to spread the word about things that have been often discussed in the blogosphere, but not so much throughout the rest of the library profession. It’s “out there” that you need to go with the same excellent message you’ve been spreading in the blogosphere.
Not to speak for Meredith, but as a big advocate of the “OPACs Suck” meme, I also think we are at the “whaddayagonnadoaboutit?” stage now.
Mind you, I also think your wardrums are making a good lot of librarians and library students thinking “whaddamigonnadoaboutit?” too. It’s just that the solutions are slower than desired and that (in my view) is (shamefully) because we outsourced a core service and have therefore lost the core knowledge and skills to make the service effective.
So the meme, as true as it is, is kind of like saying “people should eat healthier” after consenting to have all your fruit stands replaced by fast food joints.
We need our fruit stands back!
I think that the “groupthink” plays an important role. “Groupthink” gets people on board, it gets buy-in. And buy-in for a change this big is critical.
As I recently noted on Infomancy, we saw that our OPAC was no longer meeting our needs (i.e. it sucks compared to what we now want it to do).
So we built a new system that does what we need it to. FISH is what we are calling an Integrated Search Handler in that it will allow us to handle and integrate search results from different sources so that our users can find what they need. This is being built by pretty much a two person team (one coder and one interface person) based on our teams wild and crazy ideas. The “F” in FISH stands for Free (as in kittens) in that the whole system is built on free and/or open source web technologies. In particular, we have built this on pre-existing systems so larger teams/companies can do the heavy coding. Of note are the IBM OmniFind Yahoo Edition free search engine (up to 500,000 records) and Druapl, an open source CMS.
We would be more than happy to share our ongoing work with anyone. If there is enough interest, we can see about uploading this to a CVS somewhere for group coding efforts.
You can check out our beta so far at http://fish4info.org/union (though it may be up and down over the next three days as we move offices.
Ryan – well said. I’ve used Karen’s “The User is not Broken” and the series of “Sucky OPACS” posts in my classes. They are perfect for discussion starters.
Michael – Amen. “Groupthink” does lead to buy-in and the biblioblogosphere’s unique voices aid in that, because we’re getting various POVs and nuances. I also teach trendspotting and talk about it in my presentations. “Groupthink” might also be a signifier of a trend to watch!
Yep. OPACs suck. So do grungy buildings and grungy opacs. As a public service librarian all I can really do is point out where they suck and why they suck. I’m lucky that we have a terrific team.
If you all like what NCSU is doing, check out Phoenix Public library (www.phxlib.org). Our new rollout for the endeca interface to our catalog is now scheduled for 1/23 or 24. We’re unsufferably excited about the whole thing.
Yep. OPACs suck. So do grungy buildings and grungy opacs. As a public service librarian all I can really do is point out where they suck and why they suck. I’m lucky that we have a terrific team.
If you all like what NCSU is doing, check out Phoenix Public library (www.phxlib.org). Our new rollout for the endeca interface to our catalog is now scheduled for 1/23 or 24. We’re unsufferably excited about the whole thing.
OK, so we’re also using clunky connections and ancient pcs and I keep posting twice.
sorry
The Phoenix Public Library unveiled its new interface today. We are using the same interface as NCSU. I hope this gives us more to discuss as we march toward a non-sucky OPAC future.
Go to http://www.phxlib.org and click on the top banner or go to endeca.phoenixpubliclibrary.org
Hey, booktender, cool! I have some comments (up and down) about the catalog. Do you folks have a place to talk about it?
Well, er, we’ve been so busy with this project that we haven’t been able to find a way to meet all legal requirements needed to allow blogging on the server. If this goes well I hope we can because this OPAC thing really needs to be discussed in Libraryland. In the meantime, there is a not-blog at booktender.blogspot.com where comments can be left, questions can be asked and referrals made. A post has been started there.