Catalog Use and Usability Studies: What Do They Show and How Should This Evidence Affect Our Decision-Making? ALA 2009 Annual Session Program of the ALCTS CCS Research and Publications Committee

Session purpose Invited researchers who have conducted catalog usability and user study findings to discuss their research and how they improved their catalog Evidence-based as opposed to anecdotal (no one pays attention to this field, etc.) Like venturing into a foreign-land

Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want By Karen Calhoun, OCLC houn_Online_Catalogs_ALA_July_2009.pdf houn_Online_Catalogs_ALA_July_2009.pdf Some key points from her presentation: – “Evidence-based cataloging” – Digital visibility creates use

User Research at the University of Rochester’s River Campus Libraries Subtitle: Using an anthropological approach to build a better catalog by: Nora Dimmock, University of Rochester rResearchandtheCatalogatUR_revised.pdf rResearchandtheCatalogatUR_revised.pdf Key points: – Each user group has their culture – Many of the problems with opac were not immediately fixable and had to be store until later

Competitive Usability By Beth Thomsett-Scott at the University of North Texas Libraries, Denton _Competitive_Usability.pdf _Competitive_Usability.pdf Key points: – Competitive usability used more widely in business to compare different sites – OPAC is often considered to be the most difficult resource that patrons use