Going where the user is – some stumbling blocks are still in the way (yet)

Some reflections on the Industry Symposium held by OCLC at the IFLA conference 2009 in Milan.

An often expressed notion on the IFLA conference is that libraries need to go where their users are. In terms of scientific libraries, scholars and (future) students, this is to be very likely Google and Co.

In order to reach them in these environments where they search for information an integration of their local holding data and bibliographic records into Google had been proposed by allowing search engine robots to harvest all that data. Of course this approach won’t be very productive if every single library undertakes actions in this direction on its own. Just imagine a user who wants searches for a book about Rocket science and finds itself in front of a Google result page which contains OPAC-Records of thousands of libraries. He’ll never get to the book or the content.

That’s why a mediator is needed between the single libraries and Google. Some people suggest that OCLC’s Worldcat could fulfill this role as a mediator and in fact they already posses an impressive and constantly growing database with nearly 150 million records and even more holding information from libraries all around the globe.

So now the idea  is that a user searches for a book with Google or Google Book Search. Then he finds a link to the Worldcat-record-page of that book in the search results. On this particularly Worldcat-page he finds a lot of information about the book and can locate a library in his surroundings where he could go to borrow it. In other words: a single library reconnects with its users they lost to Google and Co. through Worldcat.

Unfortunately there are some stumbling block in the way yet that need to be removed first to make this idea truly work. First of all the Worldcat records need to be harvested in order to make them findable. But to date Google only harvests a tiny fraction (about 3.5 – 4 million) of the 150 Million Worldcat’s records. To be fair though these harvested records represent in large part the most widely held items in the Worldcat. But this number is definitely too small to successfully fulfill the desired harmonic interplay of Google – Worldcat and the single libraries.

But even harvesting all Worldcat records will not necessarily be enough because we know from user studies that the first 10 results are where the user look and click. This means that Worldcat records also need to appear within these first 10 records otherwise they won’t get any attention and no user will find its way to the collection of each single library and its collections. According to Matt Goldner, Product and Technology Advocate of OCLC, to date especially or mysteriously only Spanish Worldcat records are ranked very high by Google whereas the probability to see records in other languages within the first 10 results is actually very low.

He points out though that the current situation still leads a constantly growing stream of users to Worldcat and to the libraries. He states further that by offering these users valuable and useful services and contents there might be a real chance to actually draw them from away from Google towards Worldcat as their first starting point when they search for information.

I must honestly say that this idea seems to miss the point a little bit, because the fundamental idea here still remains to reconnect at best all users with their local library collections through the Worldcat and not only a minority who searches for the records Google indexed from Worldcat.

The bottom line of all that to me is that sometimes the things are not that easy as they might seem or as they are described. In this particular context of integrating library records within Google we are dealing with huge challenges that won’t be easy to overcome, such as Search Engine Optimization for bibliographic record and foremost to get Google and Col to harvest and index the whole Worldcat dataset . Regarding the latter I’ll ask myself at which cost for libraries this might be achieved.

WLAN on the agenda

Nach eiem Machtwort von president-elect Ellen Tise wurde schwupps das WLAN des Kongresszentrums frei zugänglich gemacht. Nach all den Beschwerden von vielen Teilnehmern über die unverschämt hochen Preise die für die benutzung des WLAns zu zahlen waren hat Sie schon mal ein Stein im Brett und macht gleich zu anfang ihrer Präsidentschaft, die in 2 Tagen offiziel beginnt, einen sehr positiven Einstand. Und es war ja auch kei vernüftiges arbeiten mit den ganzen Web 2.0 tools.

Vielen Dank IFLA

An evening in the city

A really special evening with „art, culture, food and shopping in the heart of the city“ the invitation offered me for this day. Starting the evening at the “palazzo reale” and strolling by the “Duomo di Milano” into the live twirling “Galleria Vittorio Emanuele Ottagono”. Inside this huge and crowded galleria with its many Restaurants and shops was presented for the first time ever and guarded by two sternly ( but good ) looking Policewomen the book “De Divina Proportione” illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci, this great genius they are all so proud of in Milan. And as I just worked out of the galleria, he got himself his very own monumental statue at the “Piazza Scala” where, in the adjacent “Palazzo Marino” two more of his drawings from the “Codex Atlanticus” are on display. As the sun downs it was time to head back to the “Duomo di Milano” where an beautiful concert with one of the rare Stradivari violins took place. It was very hot in there but I have to thank the woman sitting next to me for her fan. After satisfying my cultural needs there was only one more to satisfy, my stomach. Luckily there was a voucher for a hot Italian meal attached to the invitation, so I choose one nice restaurant and enjoyed the delicious “Risotto alla Milanese”. In the restaurant I meet also two lovely Japanese women dressed in a traditional Kimono and had a very nice time.

Thank you IFLA for that “really special evening”.

Una notte italiana

Ieri sera sono girato un pò in città per dare qualche occhiata qua e la.

Prima sono andato alla Galleria Vittorio Emanuele dove si poteva vedere il libro “De Divina Proportione” di Luca Pacioli con illustrazioni di Leonardo da Vinci. Poi mi sono goduto un concerto nel duomo di Milano in cui risuonavo un divino Stradivari. Dopo il concerto mi è venuta fame ed ho cercato un ristorantino italiano dove ho scelto il menu IFLA-speciale.

 

 
Risotto alla Milanese

Scaloppine di vitello ai funghi porcini e Zucchine trifolate alla mentuccia

 
Sorbeto

Prosecco

 
Caffè

Grazie mille IFLA per questa serata bellissima!

Dank von der IFLA Präsidentin

Völlig vertieft in die Arbeit beim Reportagen schreiben und Übersetzen wurden wir im IFLA-Express Büro ganz überraschend von der Päsidentin Frau Claudia Lux besucht, welche sich für die auopferungsvolle Arbeit der vielen FLA-Express teams ganz herzlich mit einem kleinen Geschenk bedankte. Einen Schal mit IFLA logo für kalte Tage, in Italien brauchen wir den wohl nicht. Sie musste dann auch gleich für Gruppenfotos herhalten.

Präsidentin der IFLA und Vorsitzende des BIB als Weihnachtsfrauen beim Geschenke verteilen.

Eine schwer arbeitende aber glückliche Übersetzerin mit dem neuen IFLA-Schal.

Gruppenfoto mit dem chinesischem Team.

 

Vielen, vielen Dank Frau Präsidentin.

off-site event: digital libraries

Today I managed my way into the off-site digital library workshop “”digital library futures: user perspective and institutional strategies”. Located in the wonderful old University of Milan near the Dom. After the welcome from the Headmaster of the University and the Italian Ministry of cultural heritage the President of IFLA Prof. Dr. Claudia Lux emphasized the importance of digital collections managed by librarians.

The first session “the digital library user experience: a focus on current user research” was spearheaded by Prof. David Nicholas from the University College London speaking about how users in the digital environment play, they bounce, are promiscuous, need 24/7 attendance, are from all over the world and most of them are robots.

After him Daniel Tureggi, Chair Chair Europeana user group from Paris spoke about the Europeana and its adaption to user needs.

Last speaker of this session was Elke Greifeneder from the Berlin School of Library and Information Science, Humboldt-University zu Berlin. She told us the many different methods used for online user research like surveys or log file analysis. What the purpose of studies are like the usage or the quality of a service. The relationship between purpose and result is one of no concurrency.

IFLA-Milan Blogroll

LOIDA GARCIA-FEBO has put together a blogroll of blogs covering the IFLA Congress at Milan these days.

Want to read all about the IFLA Congress in Milan? Here is a fantastic blogroll

Have a look at the various blogs and stay tuned for more news live from hot Italy.

Thank you Madame President

Today in a surprise visit to the IFLA-Express office, the IFLA President Prof. Dr. Claudia Lux handed out thank you gifts to the hard working IFLA reporters and translators. Its a black clolored scarf with the IFLA logo.
Many thanks for your appreciation for the IFLA-Express.

Management and Marketing, first speaker

In an totally overcrowded room, the yellow one is quite large, the exiting topic today in the morning is the future: “Libraries of the future – libraries in the future: where will we stand 10 years from now?”

First Prophet to look into the future was Klaus Ceynowa, a fellow countryman from Germany, but then again he works in Munich at the Bavarian state library, to talk about the “Libraries in Digital Life”. Like the magical Creature the library will burn down on its old and overcome model and within the next 10 years will emerge like the Phoenix from the ashes. Two imperatives he pointed out: 1. the library as a service must be invisible and fully integrated into aggregators and 2.the  library as a place must be visible with stunning architecture and modern design.

Klaus Ceynowa, Bavarian state library, Munich, Germany

 

He described the decline usage of library homepages and predicted the convergence to mobile devices, flexible e-book reader and a library on a (contact) lens and especially that was cool, as I might say so. Post your reasons why you love your library on a flagstaff, just like the Singaporeans do and for all of us who are sooo skeptical, there are at least 50 reasons not to change.

Welcome “first timers”

Sunday afternoon, myself and all the other first timers where gathered at the Auditorium to get a few hints on how this big Librarian community event plays. Experienced IFLA delegate and Governing Board Member Bob McKee showed us the hidden IFLA, the meetings, the networking and the fun and most importantly he gave us three heartily advises to get the most out of IFLA:

1. relax
2. there is a beautiful city outside
3. talk to people.

To get information what else is going on at IFLA while your in your session, look out for the IFLA Express “the indispensible guide throughout the IFLA congress” told us Dina Youssef, Deputy Director IFLA Centre for Arabic Speaking Libraries and Information institutions, Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

Jay Jorden, OCLC President and CEO invited us to definitely see the exhibition and explained why it is so important to have all the companies in one place.

That IFLA is going with time and incorporating all the fancy new web technologies like blogs and twitter was demonstrated to us by Loida Garcia Febo, Convenor IFLA New Professionals Special Interest Group, after all they have to keep up with us youngsters.

Aldo Pirola, Member Executive Committee IFLA congress 2009 and Director of the Library sector in Milan introduced us to the exiting city we are all living in for about a week.

The first timer session closed with mixing and talking by coffee and cakes and the handout of ant-stress-balls to all of us, but I’m sure we don’t need them.

Thank you IFLA for the warm and heartily welcome and the words of Bob came already true: “What you gain from IFLA is friendship”.

P.S.  You can recognize us by our green ribbons calling “FIRST TIMER”

  all the “First Timers”

Experienced IFLA delegate and Governing Board Member Bob McKee

Dina Youssef, Deputy Director, IFLA Centre for Arabic Speaking Libraries and Information institutions, Bibliotheca Alexandrina

Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO

Loida Garcia Febo, Convenor, IFLA New Professionals Special Interest Group

  Aldo Pirola, Member of the National Committee for the IFLA Congress 2009 and Director of the Library sector in Milan

 

Anti-Stress-Ball: how to use

Anti-Stress-Ball: try one yourself

mixing of the “First Timers”