MIT Libraries’ Betas testing & getting feedback on new services Nicole Hennig

1. MIT Libraries’ Betas testing & getting feedback on new services Nicole Hennig Web Manager & Usability Specialist MIT Libraries March 2007

2. Outline • how we came up with the idea • reaction from our community (positive!) • example of one beta service: LibX • other betas • questions

3. libraries.mit.edu/betas

4. labs.google.com

7. Key Advantages • Helps us find out what works for our users before committing to supporting a new service. • We can get experience with technologies or features that we are still learning about without putting those into our mission-critical services. • It’s a special way to market new services - creates “buzz” before new services are live.

8. Other advantages • Helps to encourage staff creativity and experimentation. • It's a place where we can ask the MIT community to contribute tools. • It can help to manage user expectations... these things aren't perfect and may not always work. We don't support them in the same way as our mission-critical services.

9. a key point • not everything that is “beta” will become a permanent service

10. Learning from failure • Every service on the Betas page will not necessarily "graduate" to permanent status. • Even if we decide not to "graduate" a beta service, it can still be useful to us as something to learn from. • Aspects of a particular beta service may become part of a more supportable service later on, perhaps backed by a different technology that is shown to be more stable.

11. Criteria for moving out of beta User feedback • The beta has received positive user feedback(from more than a handful of users). • It has been in beta for at least one semester. • It has been demonstrated that our community is using it. (We have statistics).

12. Criteria for moving out of beta Tech support • we’ve made a commitment to support it either centrally or locally with tested technologies that our staff is trained to support. • documentation, training, and workflow are in place. • if it's provided and supported outside of MIT, it's from a trusted and reliable source.

13. Example • LibX - Firefox extensionlibraries.mit.edu/libx

14. LibX adds our search to the browser toolbar

15. LibX helps meet one of our goals Put links to the libraries where the users are: - such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s - New York Times book reviews - Google - and more.

16. Links from Amazon to our catalog cue

17. Links from Amazon to our catalog

18. LibX links ISBNs to our catalog Without LibX, the ISBN is not a link.

19. LibX right-click sends selected text on a page to Google Scholar and more

20. LibX helps you get to our licensed copy from off-campus

21. Right click on a page to “reload via off-campus proxy”

22. Our licensed copy

23. libx.org

24. LibX has “graduated” User feedback • The beta has received positive user feedback(from more than a handful of users). • It has been in beta for at least one semester. • It has been demonstrated that our community is using it. (We have statistics). MIT’s LibX has highest number of downloads of all libraries using LibX.

25. Other betas • Dewey Research Advisor • RSS feeds for new titles from our catalog • Humanities “Virtual Browsery” in a Wordpress blog

27. Dewey Research Advisor

28. RSS feeds for new titles

30. Possible future betas • Podcasts and screencasts • Preview of next version of Vera that will include metasearch features

31. questions? libraries.mit.edu/betas