Innovative Interfaces: making the most of the data we have

On Friday I presented at VLA’s (Vermont Library Association) College and Special Libraries meeting. I had contacted Meredith before putting together the final version of my presentation, and I think we managed to complement each other rather than repeat each other. I ended up speaking quite a bit about library OPACs and the need for change in both the interface and the back-end technology. I did not talk much about what I see as a need for a change in cataloging practices, because I feel like I’m on shaky ground with that topic, although I did talk about LCSH (Library of Congress Subject Headings) and how they could be made more useful by being able to use them as both pre and post-coordinated topics, which could allow users to “walk” back up the path of a pre-coordinated heading to steadily broaden their results. I also discussed at the end of the presentation, how libraries need to embrace a culture of change in order to stay relevant in today’s information society.

All-in-all I think the presentation was well received, and sparked some interesting discussions. I’ve posted my slides here. If you want to learn more, here are a few places you could get started:

• LITA blog – Authority Control Meets Faceted Browse
• Casey Bisson – Presentation: Faceted Searching and Browsing in Scriblio
• Jennifer Lang – ALA Annual 2007: ALCTS President’s Program
• Library Juice – Why Web 2.0 is leading back to full cataloging
  
• Karen Calhoun – The Changing Nature of the Catalog and its Integration with Other Discovery Tools
• Roy Tennant – Life Beyond MARC: the Case for Revolutionary Change in Library Systems and Services Webcast
• Karen Schneider – How OPACs Suck, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3
  
• Eric Lease Morgan – A “Next generation” library catalog
• Jennifer Macaulay – OPAC Blog Posts – A list
• List of presentations on Endeca at NCSU
  
• Publications about Flamenco
• The University of California Libraries – Final Report: December 2005: Bibliographic Services Task Force: Executive Summary

   

Presentation woes

I have a presentation to put together for July 20th. Originally I was asked to present something about the changing face of the catalog (kind of like this post, where I pointed to some efforts to un-suck the OPAC by creating new interfaces, mash-ups and more). I demurred, because I don’t actually know a whole lot about the OPAC, my everyday activities rarely necessitate any interactions with the OPAC, and I think I have more of an end users view of the library website than a librarian’s.  I purposed the following presentation as an alternative, “Innovative Interfaces: making the most of the data we have.”

The presentation should be about 30 to 45 minutes long (gulp), and I will be following ALA mover and shaker Meredith Farkas, who is presenting “Social Software in Libraries.” I was just going to whip through a bunch of examples on libraries that are making the most of their data, such as NCSU, Penn Tags, Ann Arbor Public Library, Villanova’s myResearch Portal, BibbApps, LibraryThing, maybe Evergreen, etc. However, I went though some of Meredith’s slides from former presentations on social software in and I hate to say it but it looks like she covers quite a bit of what I was going to talk about, and much more.

I was actually asked to speak because the other presenter, who was going to talk about LibraryThing, was unable to make it and I work with the woman who is organizing the event. I wonder if I can manipulate my presentation to be about XForms instead? Or Solr, or anything else I actually deal with on a day-to-day basis. However, I was told I should probably keep my presentation non-technical, so I have my doubts that any of those topics would be a good match.

I suppose I could talk about the importance of interface design and information architecture. Although information architecture sounds almost anti library 2.0, I think a well designed interface, both graphic design and information architecture, is key to a successful interface. Here is an example I worked on recently:

• Before
• After

This is the same information, but with a new layout that separates the information into task based groups and uses basic graphic design elements such as color, icons and lots of white space to make important information stand out. This information is very non library 2.0, but the same principles apply to most interfaces design issues, even for interfaces that can be manipulated by the users. This doesn’t exactly qualify as an “innovative interface” though.

So, I’m stuck for a topic. In the meantime, my to-do list is steadily growing.