Content area
Recommendations are presented for the improvement of online catalogs within the categories of closer connections to the users' work environment, Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI), downloading, reform of the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), enhanced search capabilities, and linking with other bibliographies and text. Library automation, until now based on factors internal to the library, should be associated with and paced by the parallel shift in the task environment of the people that the library serves. The widespread and prolonged failure to provide users with software that retains the formatting of downloaded records reflects poorly on attitudes toward library users. Online use of LCSH could be greatly simplified if the existing provision for subdivisions were developed and systematized as a verbal faceted classification. Current unpublished research analyzing transaction logs reveals unexpectedly low levels of effectiveness in the use of the MELVYL system and probably online catalogs in general.
Details
Online Catalogs;
Telecommunications;
Library Development;
Library Automation;
Academic Achievement;
Electronic Mail;
Information Dissemination;
Bibliographies;
Automation;
Information Services;
Indexing;
Selective Dissemination of Information;
Online Searching;
Information Retrieval;
Word Processing;
Laptop Computers;
Workstations;
Work Environment;
Online Systems;
Catalogs
Online;
Libraries;
Improvements;
Classification;
Catalogs;
Working conditions;
On-line systems;
Selective dissemination of information;
Subdivisions;
Attitudes;
Bibliographic literature;
Automation;
Work stations;
Software;
AACR;
Subject heading schemes;
19th century;
Library of Congress Subject Headings;
Library catalogs;
Library users;
Remote searching;
Dewey Decimal Classification;
Work environment;
Information dissemination;
Internet;
Subject headings;
Dissemination