Shoulda blogged this ages ago – OPAC

Read this new article in Dlib this month, The Online Library Catalog: Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained? by Karen Markey of University of Michigan.
Here’s the abstract:
“This think piece tells why the online library catalog fell from grace and why new directions pertaining to cataloging simplification and primary sources will not attract people back to the online catalog. It proposes an alternative direction that has greater likelihood of regaining the online catalog’s lofty status and longtime users. Such a direction will require paradigm shifts in library cataloging and in the design and development of online library catalogs that heed catalog users’ longtime demands for improvements to the searching experience. Our failure to respond accordingly may permanently exile scholarly and scientific information to a netherworld where no one searches while less reliable, accurate, and objective sources of information thrive in a paradise where people prefer to search for information.”
The Bib/webliography is excellent if you’re an OPAC discussion junkie. I’d like to see more “User Experience” focus and less OPAC centrality but that will evolve.
Another good thought piece about our challenges. Read it on paper in a quiet room where no one’s distracting you. My laptop screen in the airport was not optimal.
Stephen