Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (0)

A New Word for "Catalog"
September 17, 2007

In the July/August edition of ALA Techsource's Library Technology Reports, Marshall Breeding tackles the wide world of "Next-Generation Catalogs." From the beginning, however, he runs in to the problem of that word . . . catalog. As he notes, that word "fails to completely capture the current vision of the tool for finding things in the library." I would go a bit further and say that it actually "completely fails" to capture the new wave of developments.

What is a catalog? What comes to your mind when you hear that word? Is it a traditional OPAC? The latest offerings from L. L. Bean? A listing of courses being offered? Actually, it doesn't matter. All of these examples share a common flaw. They are simply surrogates, attempts to reproduce an actual item in a condensed format for listing alongside many other items. They are not the real thing. The problem is that customers want the real thing. That is why they went to the catalog - to use it as a convenient pass-through to connect them with the real thing.

What if we could turn the library catalog into a library portal? Stop acting as a pass-through and become an experience! One of my favorite catalogs to look through comes from Williams-Sonoma. In addition to the surrogate records for their products, they provide an enhanced experience that includes recipes that show you how to use the products. An experience is probably best defined here as being a destination. You don't just go to the catalog as a pass-through listing of surrogates, but you linger for original content as well. In fact, you may return even after acquiring the "real thing" to make further use of the original content. Amazon.com has created this through reviews, favorites lists, and "you might also like" suggestions. Returning to the Amazon catalog has a purpose and a meaning.
There is no reason to return to our current catalogs until you are ready to once again use them as a complex decoder ring to help you turn your idea of what you want into the complicated string of coded letters and numbers we use to obscure our real things.

How can we change this? What best practices from catalogs turned experiences can you come up with?

Posted by Chris Harris on September 17, 2007 | Comments (0)