Fishing for Information: the Next-Generation OPAC

The general consensus in the biblioblogosphere is that OPACs (online public access catalogs) suck. I'm just as apprehensive about next-generation OPACs. That's akin to discussing tools in the late Stone Age. Granted, there were very impressive advances in flint knapping, but in the end, it was basically banging two rocks together.

OPACs, no matter the generation, are about delivering MARC records to users—who aren't looking for MARC records. To define the principles behind a truly next-generation library experience, I wrote a catalog manifesto.

1) The catalog is not ours. We librarians have many professional tools. Is it too much to ask that we provide one tool that is built to meet user needs?

2) MARC records are not books. If our users are coming to the catalog for books, then why do we present them with records that create more barriers for accessing books?

3) Speak the user's language. Be it English, Spanish, or Vietnamese, we need to communicate with our users. Librarianese is technical talk—terms like “bibliographic instruction” and “monographs” aren't helpful to users looking for “how to” and “books.” MARC records should be accessible, but only when you log in as a librarian.

4) The library catalog is ours. Not quite as contradictory as it might first appear, this means that we should help foster a community built around our collections. By involving our users in the catalog—through writing book reviews, commenting on new releases, and creating lists of favorites—we can build connections with our patrons. I believe in revolutionary change. Two years ago, I asked my school library system to consider what we could do if we simply chucked all the accepted rules for OPACs. The result is a new library portal that focuses the online library experience on the needs of users, providing a more socially connected environment.

Our open-source library portal, Fish4Info (fish4info.org), was not designed to be an OPAC. This portal rejects the standard display of information in a MARC format that tells users books are “24cm.” tall and have “col. ill.” Instead, we highlight the book's summary, cover image, etc., in a simple format. Gone are library labels and AACR2 punctuation marks; they have been replaced with real English and titles that don't end in a “/.” Though a radical change from other OPACs, the basic ideas behind Fish4Info are not new.

For years, school librarians have used student reviews and other user-produced content to promote reading. Fish4Info provides a single portal that integrates these digitally reshifted activities with the library catalog. The result is a complete, online library experience. The catalog becomes a destination, not just a pass-through tool for locating resources. Students return to the records for books they have finished reading to rate them, write reviews, and explore similar titles.

In a 2006 pilot program at the Alexander (NY) Middle School in which we partnered with a local special education training center, we learned that students respond quite positively to the opportunity to interact more dynamically with their library catalog. Moreover, data proved that Fish4Info had a positive impact on student achievement. In this district that had been targeted for extra assistance based on student performance, 100 percent of the pupils with learning disabilities in the pilot group met state benchmarks for performance on the sixth- grade state English Language Arts exams. One of the lowest scoring students in reading comprehension became one of the most prolific book reviewers on the Fish4Info site.

Fish4Info was designed using open-source software, which means you can freely download the program to run on your Web server. The latest code and installation instructions are available from fish4info.org/gofish.