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Joint OPAC Design Project

Joint OPAC Design Project. Johan Ragetli, Library Information Analyst Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board http://204.187.140.69/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=kllic. Scope of Project. Migrate to new system (Dynix to Horizon) Increase partnership, develop consortium

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Joint OPAC Design Project

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  1. Joint OPAC Design Project Johan Ragetli, Library Information Analyst Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board http://204.187.140.69/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=kllic

  2. Scope of Project • Migrate to new system (Dynix to Horizon) • Increase partnership, develop consortium • Provide improved access to partners’ associated user groups • Design front end for catalogue • customize look and operation suitable to all partners • Initial timelines = one year

  3. Who was involved? PACLAN >> KLLiC • Kawartha Lakeshore Library Information Consortium Over 100 locations • formerly known as the Peterborough Area Consortium Library Automation Network. http://www.kpr.edu.on.ca/boardinfo/services/educ/lrc/lib/kllic_main.htm

  4. Current Partners • Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB • A Public School Board with 7 high schools initially, but bringing a total of 100 elementary and secondary school libraries. • Peterborough Victoria Northumberland Clarington Catholic DSB • A separate school board with 6 secondary locations • Peterborough PL • Public Library serving a municipal population of 70 000 patrons with 2 branches and 1 township library

  5. Critical tasks for new catalogue • One face for KLLiC consortium - Additional faces for each location within each system • Scoping... i.e. Ability to search one location at a time, currently not available in iPAC 2.03 • Suitable for public users & school users • Some consistency for students across systems • Establish Consortium Cataloguing Committee • Link to other catalogues • Link to regional initiatives such as KCC community portal

  6. Brief Chronology May 2002 • Launch of iPAC. • Single profile. • Out-of-the-box July 2002 • Training on iPAC System Admin. • Established profiles for each location. • Includes predefined location limiter. Sept 2002 • Identified iPAC design team.

  7. Design Team Goals • Clean up functional issues • Test usability • online evaluations, feedback forms • focus group • site statistics • Research best practices, sites that work • Create basic prototypes • use system admin tools • customized templates using XML

  8. Usability Testing • Usability testing… survey, re-design, test, survey… • Reading: Jakob Neilson (useit.com), Darlene Fichter (USask), Web4Lib-ers, Horizon listserv... • Came up with task based testing. • Location • Copy information • Navigation • Requests • Help features

  9. Usability Test 5 Basic questions with follow-up questions • Establish/Find your location. • Launch the catalogue • Go to your school location Follow-up: How do you know you’re on correct page or location?

  10. Usability Test. 2 • Find a non-fiction title • Find a book on reptiles • How many copies does the library own? • Do any other libraries have a copy? • What is the call number • Search a different location for reptiles • Follow-Up: Do you feel confident you could locate the book in the library given the information you found in the catalogue?

  11. Usability Test: 3 3. Find a fiction title • Find a book by Robertson Davies at your library • How many copies are there? • Is it available (checked in)?

  12. Usability Test: 4 • Find PD material at LRC • Switch to LRC location • Find materials with subject “guided reading” • How many hits? • Click on “Fountas and Pinell” title • How many copies? • What call number? • Available? Follow-up: • How would you get one of these titles from LRC?

  13. Usability Test: 5 • Assess overall satisfaction. • What is your overall satisfaction with the new catalogue? • What did you like? • What didn’t you like? • How would you improve the iPAC?

  14. Usability Test: Summary • Interviewed 10 students, 10 staff • No big surprises • Locations very important • Request buttons misleading • 19/20 Didn’t use Help • Tended to use default index (keyword) for all searches • Wanted more than one limit • Didn’t like Copy Info below Full Record • Didn’t “like stuff that doesn’t work”: Requests, E-mailing citations

  15. Usability Test: Next steps • Address as many issues as possible as revealed in testing phase • What will software, time, expertise allow • Be prepared to adjust prototype as you go • Repeat process again.

  16. Design Consideration: Locations/Scoping • Functionality versus design • Created virtual library location to act as default. • To search all holdings. • To represent consortium. (KLLiC) • Initial results confirmed that switching locations was problematic. • Added Locations page to test page based on Brad Bates work in Florida. (Polk County ) • Limited success. Only one location can be selected as a pre-defined limit.

  17. Investigating Custom templates and stylesheets • Edit or create XSL templates and stylesheets • To allow greater flexibility in design • Housed on web server which resides at PL location. • Discouraged by vendor. • Difficult to work with for novices and non-programmers. • Upgrades would overwrite templates requiring any changes to be tracked, both where pages had been substituted and where minor changes to existing sheets had been made. • Sales people suggested that vendor would be coming up with several models to choose from in upcoming versions or iterations.

  18. Design Consideration: Custom look • Each partner trained one system administrator • Colours, logos • each system chose their own • Menus, options, limits • String variables • Consistent functionality for students across systems • Displays, tabs • Customizing result lists and information displayed on record • Integration with web site

  19. Outstanding Issues/Next steps • Deciding on global settings/functions/design • Learn XML/XSL • Remove Request buttons and “stuff that doesn’t work” • Multi-pick limiters • My List • Broadcast Searching, Z39.50 • Custom Help Sheets • Elementary schools interface • Harmonize interfaces, particularly schools

  20. Conclusions • Usability testing provides excellent guide for implementation • Form follows function • Got $ ? Hire a web developer/programmer • Don’t look to catalogue as a portal--Integrate with web sites and other tools • Partners need to commit to process

  21. Thank You.Joint OPAC Design Projecthttp://204.187.140.69/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=kllic

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