Library Analytics on the Web 2.0 Era

Therefore, the authors study some useful clues to understand the need to integrate these tools beyond visual consistency by offering each other the functionalities needed by the service in order to provide information and technical difficulties inherent in this strategic and new state.

Intelligent Personal Agents in Library 2.0 Environments

The use of OPACs has been one of the problems that users of libraries have faced. The application of Web 2.0 techniques in OPACs has favored the interaction between users and library automation systems. However, these improvements focus on aspects of collaboration and recommendation rather than on aspects of cognitive work. In this field, the contribution of software agents can be of great importance. This chapter presents the design of an intelligent personal assistant called Byblon, which uses programming of agents and semantic queries against repositories. The aim of the personal assistant is to offer users recommendations on concepts related to the object of his search. The user evaluation has provided satisfactory results, and the use of an avatar as a future interface development is envisioned.

VuFind

Apache Solr, an open source Java-based search engine, forms the core of many Library 2.0 products. The use of an index in place of a relational database allows faster data retrieval along with key features like faceting and similarity analysis that are not practical in the previous generation of library software. The popular VuFind discovery tool was built to provide a library-friendly front-end for Solr’s powerful searching capabilities, and its development provides an informative case study on the use of Solr in a library setting. VuFind is just one of many library packages using Solr, and examples like Blacklight, Summon, and the eXtensible Catalog project show other possible approaches to its use.

Rich and Dynamic Library Catalogs

The authors redesign the user interface of an online library catalog, leveraging current Web technologies that allow dynamic and fine-grained user interaction. Over the course of their iterative design and test cycle, they identified four key areas where such dynamic Web technologies can be used to improve the support for typical information seeking strategies, namely: 1) the use of overview + details, 2) a tabular data display, 3) using tabs as a history mechanism, and 4) embedding a suggestion bar. The authors believe that the revised affordances created by their changes in these four areas will inform the design of future search interfaces.

Going Beyond the Bibliographic Catalog

This chapter exposes some core concepts for an innovative bibliographic information search system model, where not only the document is the point of reference, but to a new extent, the user himself and all his surroundings. Taken as central point is the bibliographic collection of the Library and the “ecosystem” of users and their use of the same, added with, to the extent where it is feasible, information from other sources.

Quantitative Approach Applied to User Interface of Latin American Web OPACs

This chapter studies user interfaces of Web Online Public Access Catalogs (OPACs) and presents their principal difficulties in facing the man-machine interaction and the contributions of Web 2.0 to overcome these limitations. Methodologies used to study OPACs interfaces are examined. A quantitative approach is used to analyze Web OPACs in academic, special, national, and public libraries through the conclusive use of several tests: chi-square or test of independence, logistic regression, odds ratio, analysis of variance, and discriminant analysis. The situation of Latin American Web OPACs is verified in relation to the use of Integrated Library Systems (ILS) and Database Management Systems (DBMS). This methodology is proposed to study the 2.0 functionalities in these catalogs.

XML in Library Cataloging Workflows

Libraries have been trying hard to produce and aggregate resources in both print and digital formats, which need to be integrated into the library system to provide access to users. This chapter summarizes the rapidly changing cataloging and metadata processing workflows in libraries and discusses the increasing need of exploiting XML technologies, including XSLT, and how this technology can improve in bibliographic metadata creation and management, and resource sharing and aggregation. The chapter narrates the changing environments of metadata management, especially diverse metadata sources and standards, which requires the use of new information technologies in traditional cataloging workflows.

Web 2.0 Technology as a Teaching Tool

In response to two different pedagogical challenges, namely delivering varied library instruction to a big first year class and delivering a focused library instruction to a varied group, librarians at an academic institution created online guides. These guides, built in LibGuides with many Web 2.0 tools included, effectively delivered the desired instructional service. This chapter outlines the details of the challenge, the steps taken to create the guide, and the use of the guide and possible future uses.

Library 2.0 and Personal Information Management

In this chapter, the authors review current literature on personal information management to analyze how it is understood with the aim of reviewing the way in which individuals try to manage their personal information and whether libraries observe the information behavior of their community members to learn which is the best way to offer their services. At the end of this process, they show that a role for library professionals could be devised in being information management mediators for their community members in the digital world, helping them make sense out of chaos. This role is clearly linked to the development of information literacy programs in libraries.

Does VuFind Meet the Needs of Web 2.0 Users?

With new Web tools, information can be released to flow in every direction (library to user, user to library, library to library, and user to user). Western Michigan University (WMU) implemented VuFind as the primary OPAC interface for its Voyager system in September 2009. VuFind includes many Web 2.0 catalog features such as user tagging, comments, and reviews, as well as “more like this” and “Did you mean?” Having relied in the past on vendors with relatively restrictive licenses and indexes, and being mindful that Voyager does not allow users to write to its database tables (i.e. to allow more community participation in describing what is in the catalog), WMU chose the open source VuFind. Originally developed at Villanova’s Falvey Memorial Library to work with Voyager; VuFind now has a community of libraries that have implemented and improved it. This chapter discusses some of the Web 2.0 services and functions that VuFind provides, and how examines how they are being used at WMU. User access logs are analyzed, and the use of tagging is examined. There was undoubtedly a significant degree of hype around VuFind a year ago, but what is the reality one year after implementation?