September 23rd, 2008 – Library Issues Forum: An Overview of Catalog Overlay Software Products
Time: 10:00am – 11:00am
Place: Library Instruction Room 1
Presenters: Mary Aycock & Jee Davis
In recent years, there has been much discussion in the library community about whether current integrated library systems are intuitive enough to serve current library users’ needs. Many commercial information providers and search engines, including Amazon, Google and LibraryThing, have changed user expectations and behavior with such features as one-box searching, “did you mean” queries, relevancy ranking results, faceted browsing, and social tagging.
In the quest to improve the public display and function of the online public access catalog, many libraries have installed catalog overlay software products. This presentation will examine such products, including AquaBrowser, Encore, Endeca, and Primo. Examples of specific implementations of these products will be displayed from libraries across the country. Also, common characteristics among them will be presented, as well as comparisons of the special features and services. The ways that the products rely on catalog records and the crucial role played by the data in the records will also be discussed.
A panel discussion will follow the presentation.
– Staff Development Committee