I set up a del.icio.us account. Now I can keep track of all my bookmarks. The bookmark file in my computer was working fine, but that ability to tag sites and access them remotely, admittedly, is an advantage. Right now I'd rather discuss tagging and how it could be used to our advantage with our own CML catalog.
The other night I was watching PBS and caught the tail end of an interview with Magic Johnson about a new business book he has coming out (1). Since I habitually look up books and music I hear about and since it sounds like a book CML should own, I get on our website.
Doing a quick catalog search for "Magic Johnson" yielded plenty of results. Now I narrow things down to books, then non-fiction, then items from the last 3 years. Result: nothing BY Magic Johnson.
Off to amazon...Since CML seemingly does not own the book, perhaps I should get the info and make a suggestion for purchase. Amazon lists the book as, "32 Ways to Be a Champion In Business." I try the catalog a couple more times. Magic Johnson 32 ways. Nope. Magic Johnson business. Nada. So far I have been searching like most of our customers probably do, using keywords that make the most sense. Finally I try searching like a librarian. Author: Johnson, Earvin. Limit by publication year and sure enough there's the book in our catalog listings.
What is my point in describing this? Simple. The functionality of our catalog could be improved by allowing customers to create tags in our catalog. Here are the keywords that are included with the title: Success in business, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Work ethic, Social values and Earvin Johnson. Our catalogers did not include the author's nickname "Magic" in the MARC record. Like it or not, customers search our catalog in the same way they search the Internet: with prominent keywords that make the most sense to them. Before AquaBrowser I would find abandoned webpac searches all the time. "Your search did not produce any results." Something to that effect. AquaBrowser is a means of adapting to how people conduct their searches.
Wouldn't it be interesting to go one step further? Let customers add to the effectiveness of our catalog (2). What if I had been a customer at home that eventually found the catalog listing for the new book by Earvin Johnson but had the ability to tag the search record with his nickname Magic? Perhaps the next search by a customer would go smoother.
1) After his career as a basketball player Magic Johnson flirted with a career as a talkshow host. He sucked at this. However, he is a pretty savvy entrepreneur. He has thriving businesses in Los Angeles neighborhoods where others have been hesitant to invest. Movie theaters and coffee houses stand out as some of the things I've read about.
2) This has reminded me of a title I have run across at work: The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. Perhaps I'll mark this down as 'plan to read' on Shelfari.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This post is dead-on!
You conducted a cool little experiment here. I couldn't agree more with your suggestions for CML to open it up a bit.
And, I probably shouldn't be surprised by the fact that you use footnotes, but oh well, I am! ;)
You're obviously psychic! CML will be adding ability to tag items, as well as create personal and shared lists, and do ranking and reviews some time next year. We will also be adding authority records, which will result in your query being expanded to include "see references", and "see also" references appearing in the Discover Cloud - thus Magic Johnson would bring up Earvin Johnson as author. Sorry the functionality is not in place yet...
Post a Comment