OPAC Laments
Last night while talking with Poopsie she asked me when I was going to fix the OPACs of the world. Well that's a good question isn't it?Most librarians, even those of us more interested in doing tequila shots during work hours agree that the OPACs available today fucking suck. But don't blame your vendors people. Well, blame the vendors, but part of it is your own damn fault. Fucking librarians. I shall explain.
Cataloging. Oh cataloging. Those of you who cream just thinking about it--well you're a little sick. My main concern when studying this particular facet of librarianship was, well why wouldn't I make every field searchable? I believe I got a mumbled response as it isn't practical. Oh, but including the height of a book is? Why do people care how big a book is? And if they do care show me all the books at 29cm damn it. Even the Naked Librarians are concerned about the nature of cataloging.
There is a bunch of talk about going RDF with the cataloging....or was that a pipe dream I had? The triple looking something like: item, location, status. Wait, don't we already do that? & even changing to that...who cares? Will it make the OPAC any better--fucks no.
Hands down best catalog around today is NCSU's. I say that, but really it pisses me off too. I live in a fantasy-land where there is a beer volcano and stripper factory and where in one single interface I can search the OPAC and for articles. That's right when I put in "drunk hippies" I get not only The hippie dictionary : a cultural encyclopedia of the 1960s and 1970s but also On space invaders, drunk hippies and the Spanish inquisition. By: Janowiak, John. Downbeat, Feb2000, Vol. 67 Issue 2, p18.
However this is at least 5 if not more years away. Dave Pattern is doing some great things with the OPAC though. At least I think he is. Bonus he's using AJAX, which you'alls know I've been jonezen to try out. We all know that usability is really the new black. People love Amazon for a reason--freaking usability and free shipping for purchases over $25.
I suppose the ultimate point of this rant is that it will take a whole fuck of a lot more than me to completely change OPACs. I think that librarians who give a shit should start their own ILS company. We would definitely need Dave Pattern and some guys from Endeca but if you build a better OPAC universities will switch. Money in the bank. Cha-ching...and I didn't even have to whoop a trick.
posted by Kansas @ 5:30 PM
