enhancing the usability of libraries

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Enhancing the Usability of Libraries Suzanne Lewis, Manager, Gosford and Wyong Hospital Libraries, Northern Sydney Central Coast Health

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A presentation on enhancing the usability of libraries delivered at the Ark Group's recent conference, "Management Strategies for Library and Information Service Centres", Sydney, 19-21 September 2007.

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Page 1: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Suzanne Lewis, Manager, Gosford and Wyong Hospital Libraries, Northern

Sydney Central Coast Health

Page 2: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Usability

• Easy to learn• Useful• Easy to use• Pleasant to use

Gould, J.D. and Lewis, C. Designing for usability: key principles and what designers think. Communications of the ACM, 28, 3 (March 1985): 300-311.

Page 3: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Ease of Use

Defined as “how quickly we can use a product to complete tasks”.

Library patrons want ease of use.

Page 4: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Usefulness

Defined as whether the product does “what it is supposed to do …. Does it work?” What are the end results?

Librarians want usefulness.

Page 5: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

ease of use + usefulness

=

usability

Dicks, R. Stanley. Mis-usability: on the uses and misuses of usability testing. Proceedings of the 20th Annual International Conference on Computer Documentation, 26-30. October 20-23, 2002, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Page 6: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Usability Quick Fixes

• Signage• Display • Weeding• Opening hours• Food and drink - coffee

Woodward, J. 2005. Creating the customer-driven library: building on the bookstore model. American Library Association: Chicago.

Page 7: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Library Lovers Love Coffee

Page 8: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

A usable library is easily located and accessible

http://www.johnstanley.cc/

Page 9: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Daily Checklist Completed(tick √)

Out of date material removed from counter

Brochure holders full of relevant leaflets

Velcro, Blu-Tack and sticky tape removed

Time on clock is correct

Windows, doors, floors clean & all litter removed

All staff wearing name badges

All clutter removed from counter

All displays re-stocked

All lights are working

All signage is relevant to today

All faded, ripped signs are removed

Stanley, J & L. 2004. Think for your customer. Lizardpublishing.biz: Kalamunda, WA.

Page 10: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

What Makes a Library Usable?

• Accessibility – physical and online

• Relevance – right information, right place, right time

• Responsive to patrons – able to change, adapt, respond quickly

• Attitude of library staff

Page 11: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Three Types of Librarianship

• “Lollipop librarianship”• “Broccoli librarianship”• Evidence based

librarianship

Page 12: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Lollipop Librarianship

• Give them what they want• Choose services and

resources that are easy to learn and use

• Google• Fast results but not always

the best or most useful

Page 13: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Lollipop Librarianship• Hangwi Tang & Jennifer Hwee Kwoon Ng. 2006. Googling

for a diagnosis – use of Google as a diagnostic aid: internet based study. British Medical Journal 333:1143-1145, 10 November.

• “…. In difficult diagnostic cases, it is often useful to ‘google for a diagnosis’. Web based search engines such as Google are becoming the latest tools in clinical medicine, and doctors in training need to become proficient in their use”.

• In this study, using 26 case reports from the New England Journal of Medicine, Google searches found the correct diagnosis in 58% of cases.

• 58% !!!!!!!

 

Page 14: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Referrals from Search Engines to Web Sites of 844 Journals Hosted by HighWire Press (June 2005)

Steinbrook, R. Searching for the right search – reaching the medical literature. New England Journal of Medicine 2006; 354:4-7.

Page 15: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Broccoli Librarianship

• Telling patrons what they should know and how they should use services and resources because “it is good for them”.

Vaughn, D. & Burton C. 2003. Broccoli librarianship and Google-bred patrons, or what’s wrong with usability testing? College & Undergraduate Libraries 10 (2), 1-18.

Page 16: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Information Literacy

• “only librarians like to search; everyone else likes to find”

(Roy Tennant quoted in Wilder, S. 2005. “Information literacy makes all the wrong assumptions”. The Chronicle Review, 51, 18. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i18/18b01301.htm)

• “The OPAC meets librarians’ needs, not the end-users’ needs. Change the OPAC rather than doing more information literacy training. Put our content into GOOGLE.”

(Abram, Stephen. The Top 10 Strategies for Library Success – An Expert Forum with Stephen Abram. 29 August 2007, Sydney.)

Page 17: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Evidence Based LibrarianshipEvidence Based Library and Information Practice

(EBLIP) seeks to improve library and information services and practice by bringing together the best available evidence and insights derived from working experience, moderated by user needs and preferences. … It thus attempts to integrate user-reported, practitioner-observed and research-derived evidence as an explicit basis for decision-making.

Booth, A. (2006). Counting what counts: performance measurement and evidence-based practice. Performance Measurement and Metrics, 7(2), 63-74.

Page 18: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

All Too Familiar?How often have you seen this sort of message on a listserv:

‘Does anyone out there know how to deal with problem x or y?’

And the reply comes back: ‘Yes, here at Diddly-Squat Library we had the same problem and we fixed it by doing yabba-dabba-doo.’

And more often than not, the response is: ‘Great – we’ll try the same thing and hope it works for us. Thanks so much.’

Well, isn’t that careful, reflective and insightful professional practice! (Gorman 2004)

Gorman, G. E. (2004, April). Evidence-based information practice comes of age. Retrieved 23 August, 2005, from http://0-www.emeraldinsight.com.library.newcastle.edu.au/info/librarians/Information_Management/info_curves2.htm

Page 19: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Stages of EBLIP

• Formulate the question• Find the evidence• Critically appraise the

evidence• Apply the evidence• Evaluate impact and

performance• Report findings

Page 20: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Formulate a Question

S Setting Library Services Intranet site

P Perspective Staff and students of the organisation

I Intervention Site improvements

C Comparison Original site

E Evaluation Usability (as a determiner of effectiveness)

Page 21: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Focus the Question

“What improvements to the current Library intranet site should be made to improve usability for the staff and students of the organisation?”

Cotter, L., Harije, L., Lewis, S. & Tonnison, I. 2006. Adding SPICE to a library intranet site: a recipe to enhance usability. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 1, (1): 3-25.

Page 22: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Finding the Evidence

• User-reported – brief online survey

• Librarian-observed – usability testing

• Research-derived – literature search

Page 23: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Appraise the Evidence

• We appraised– Quality of article– Level of evidence– Contextual relevance

• We asked– Is this a study we can

use/adapt?– Is the study

valid/reliable/applicable?

Page 24: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Apply the Evidence• DIRECTLY

– Raward’s Usability Analysis Tool for library websites

• DERIVATION– Usability testing

• CONDITIONALLY– Research-Based Web Design &

Usability Guidelines

• ENLIGHTENMENT– Theoretical discussion, commentaries– Examination of other sites

Page 25: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Evaluate Impact

• Evaluating – Our performance applying the

EBL process– Impact of changes made

• Disseminating– Conference proceedings– Publication of project report– EBLIP journal from 2006

Page 27: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

What does EBLIP have to do with usability?

• “Lollipop librarianship” tends to result in services and resources that are easy to use but not always useful

• “Broccoli librarianship” tends to result in services and resources that are useful but not always easy to use

• Evidence based librarianship helps you achieve resources and services that are highly usable

Page 28: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Don’t be a Broccoli Librarian

Dewey vs NLM• Two collections• Two classification schemes• Two runs of books• Too confusing!!

Solution – change classification scheme

Page 29: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Its OK to be a Lollipop Librarian

• Two clinical decision support tools

• One evidence-based, one expert opinion

• Librarians favoured the evidence-based product

• Patron feedback indicated overwhelming preference for the expert opinion product

Page 30: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Enhancing Usability Using EBLIP

• Patron’s Choice Project – University of Alberta Libraries (http://www.eblip4.unc.edu/)

• Evidence-based collection management @ NSCCH

Page 31: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries
Page 32: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Evidence Based Collection Management

Assessment of projects

Changing collection

needsINNOVATIVE

COREAssessment

of projects

Changing collection

needsINNOVATIVE

CORE

Page 33: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Chillout @ NSCCH

A project to analyse book ILLs:• Is it more cost-effective to borrow

a text several times on ILL or purchase it for the collection?

• How do we keep track of the number of times a text has been requested on ILL?

• Which option does the patron prefer – request an ILL or fast-track purchase?

Page 34: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Ann Arbor District Library Cataloguewww.aadl.org/catalog

Page 35: Enhancing the Usability of Libraries

Thank you