SirsiDynix

The most important enticement to use a library user interface is the promise of interesting content. Users will come if they find collections, information and entertainment they can't get elsewhere. They will come for "what" they find there. Whether they stay or come back, though, usually depends on "how" users find and interact with that content. If the interface is appealing, users will carry on. A few determined or fixated souls will persist through an awkward interface, but only a few. Assuming your library has some "what" that users will come to find, does the "how" of your user interface make them want to stay and even come back?

Some questions indicating an appealing user interface are obvious: 

• Is it simple and uncluttered? 
• Are the most frequently used functions prominent and easy to find? 
• Does the workflow make common tasks a matter of one or two clicks?
• Are the graphics and colors complimentary and non-distracting? 

I'd like to focus on two other appeal questions that may not be so obvious:

Does your user interface have a light integration with other online environments?If you have an established institutional Web presence, the library interface should give you a matching banner, navigation, colors, fonts, layout, etc. It should be easy to put a library interface elements elsewhere, a search widget, links that launch searches, or links to specific resources, for example. It should be easy to add integrations with social networks like LibraryThing, Goodreads or Facebook. It should be easy to add videos, sound files, or feeds from blogs, from RSS, or from Twitter. It should be easy to add catalog enrichment of your choosing like cover art, reviews or tag clouds. A light integration with other online environments means that you don't need to reprogram the whole interface or even pages of it to add integrations like these. You should be able to upload a bit of custom code and be done.

Does your interface provide a satisfying mobile experience? Mobile devices will soon be the primary Internet connection for a majority of the general population. The rules of interface design still apply, but with a few special considerations. A mobile library interface should offer essential transactions with a minimum of typing and clicking. It should take full advantage of multi-touch interaction options. Because mobile devices are almost always a very personal space, they should remember logins by default. When a user opens the application, it should pick up right where the user left off in her last session. 

At SirsiDynix, we've invested quite a bit lately in the appeal of our user interfaces. Every new Enterprise install includes custom attention for colors, layout and integration with existing environments. Enterprise comes with a large set of sample integrations – LibraryThing, Chilifresh, Google Books, Facebook and Delicious, for example. The BookMyne iPhone app is free for patrons, a standard part of the SirsiDynix ILS. While there is more still to do, that investment is clearly paying off. 

I had a bit of interesting feedback on a blog post from last week. I said, "The days when people look to the things on the shelves to give them information are numbered." Someone responded, "They're called 'books', Jared." In other words, as I read it, it seems premature, even a little ridiculous, to predict the demise of books.

And I agree. Even as libraries offer databases, music, movies, and unique digital collections, In the minds of most people I know, a library still means books. 

My prediction is maybe better framed with a rhetorical question: What is a book? 

• If a patron downloads it and reads it on an iPad, because that's easier than trekking downtown to pull it off the library shelf, is it still a book?
• If the download has video clips and sound recordings mingled with the text, is it still a book?
• If the user interacts with it by jumping into maps, exploring references, searching for keywords, or even influencing the plot, is it still a book?
• If it is offered in electronic format only, is it still a book?
• If it bypasses publishers and is sold directly to consumers on the Internet, is it still a book?
• If some of the most interesting text has been contributed by other readers, is it still a book?  
• If a student downloads just a chapter from a larger work because that's all she was assigned to read, is that a book?
• If a professor buys the rights to 7 chapters from 6 different works, and distributes that with his syllabus, is that a book?
• If those of us in the library business decide to call it a work, an expression, or a manifestation, will people generally take any notice?

My prediction is that, as the scenarios above are already becoming realities, books with bindings and pages will occupy an ever shrinking share of what people are looking to for information. Hence, we're building tools at SirsiDynix to help libraries manage more than just the things on the shelves.

I hear talk in the library world about bringing users back to the library as a starting place for reference and research. This reflects a wish, it seems, that with the right library system, users will abandon the search engines and flock back to the library for their general reference and information needs. This wish is misplaced, I think. The search engines provide information with a scope, speed, convenience and currency that libraries have never offered. Libraries should focus instead on carving out a space for themselves by offering something that the search engines don't.

Here are a few key things that libraries can offer to set themselves apart: 

• Local or unique content: Lots of libraries have begun to digitize collections that are of interest to  specific audiences -- maybe a collection of pioneer journals, or a set of historical newspapers, or an image collection, or the minutes of city council meetings. If users were forced to discover this content through Google or Bing, it would simply get drowned in the global pool. Libraries, however, can serve specific audiences with a focused search of specific collections.
• Collection highlighting: A library user interface can call attention to collections that particularly interest a specific set of users. It might let users browse a list of top books on a specific topic, or recent DVD acquisitions. It could also allow them to scroll through an image collection, sort of like an online museum. Libraries can play a big role in furthering the goals of their funding entities when they reach out to specific audiences in this way.
• Subscription content: Some of the most interesting and important content isn't freely available on the Web. Libraries can use institutional funding to provide access to this content for their members.

The SirsiDynix user interface strategy aims to match the speed and convenience of the search engine experience with the content, qualityand focus that libraries are in a unique position to offer. SirsiDynix Enterprise lets libraries harvest multiple digital record sets into a meta-index. Enterprise offers users a single relevance ordered search of everything or focused searches of specific record sets, depending on the library's preferences. Meanwhile, SirsiDynix Portfolio lets libraries manage digital assets hierarchically, automatically generating scrollable views of record sets in virtual rooms.

The days when people look to the things on the shelves to give them information are numbered. In the digital world that is emerging, libraries have a crucial role to play. My job at SirsiDynix is to give libraries tools to make that role a reality.  

Several years ago at SirsiDynix, we began the process of assigning a dedicated representative – we call them library relations managers – to each of our customer library accounts to provide these libraries with personalized service for their library needs. Over the years, this approach has worked well, providing what is, in essence, an outbound, proactive, consultative service approach (as opposed to the classic customer support approach of taking calls and issues in a reactive mode).

Large, complex libraries that often have unique needs, it appeared, benefited the most from having a dedicated library relations manager. In fact, just a few weeks ago I was told of such a library having a particularly positive experience – thanks to a SirsiDynix library relations manager – and how this resulted in higher satisfaction and outcomes for this library in the midst of a staff project to customize the system’s patron experience. That kind of success, that kind of satisfaction, is exactly what we want for all our libraries.

So today, we are very excited to announce an expansion of this program that has served only a percentage of our library customers to date. It is our hope and goal that in the next 60 days, every SirsiDynix library will be assigned its own library relations manager. These library relations managers will now work closely with each SirsiDynix library, on a one-on-one basis, to understand the library’s goals and challenges, and to help each library reap the best benefits from our technology. They will coordinate activities, expedite issue resolutions and communicate product needs to SirsiDynix on behalf of the library, so that every library can attain the custom-made solutions that SirsiDynix technology was made to enable.

This library relations manager expansion effort is the first of several initiatives you will be seeing from SirsiDynix in the next few weeks. This, as with all our new SirsiDynix initiatives, is designed with one goal in mind: to take library technology service to the next level for our customers, and most importantly, for library users.

Please check back regularly for updates, and to give us your feedback. We love to hear from you.

We had a new product manager join my group in October. Nathan Guinn is a veteran of other local technology companies (Word Perfect, Novell, and the embedded open source company Lineo Inc.), but he's new blood to us. Having Nathan on board has reminded me how good it is to bring in fresh perspectives, fresh energy, and new ideas from time to time. Nathan is working on the web services offerings we have for SirsiDynix Symphony and for our new Discovery Platform. The Discovery Platform is the technology behind our the SirsiDynix Enterprise product. Enterprise 3.0 uses the Symphony Web Services to get information about real-time item availability.

Looking ahead, there's lots more interaction planned for Enterprise and the Symphony Web Services--account information, hold transactions, authentication... The great thing about the web services, though, is that it's not just SirsiDynix products that will use them. Nathan has also begun working with some of our Strategic Partner Program participants to create new web services for the applications our partners and customers want to build.

We really wanted a fresh set of eyes for that job. Nathan is responsible for looking at the whole world of web services we could build and choosing what to build first.

Nathan is going to be working closely with Ed Riding, the product manager for SirsiDynix Horizon. Ed knows how Horizon works and he understands the customer perspective thoroughly. From his first library job at New York Public through more than 20 years with this company, Ed has humbly kept learning and is never one to shy away from the details. Ed provides background knowledge to balance Nathan's fresh perspective.

Nathan and Ed will be collaborating on web service-based interactions between the Discovery Platform and the Horizon ILS. The Discovery Platform currently harvests bibliographic data from both Symphony and Horizon. Web services give us a way to expand the interaction between the Horizon ILS and Discovery Platform clients like the SirsiDynix Enterprise discovery interface. We want, for example, to give library users real-time availability information from Horizon. It also lets Horizon library users take advantage of everything new we're building into Enterprise. Having Ed and Nathan working together bodes well for the Horizon user experience.

Jared Oates
Director of Product Strategy, Engineering

If you were to ask 100 people what the best way is to learn something new, a common theme you would hear among their answers would be to have an opportunity to try it out for themselves—a hands-on learning experience. There’s just something about “trying it out” that helps the new information stick a little better. Of course, researchers in fields of psychology and education would be able to give countless details about the rationale for hands-on learning. Most people, however, don’t need to know the “whys” to know that hands-on learning works.

So if hands-on learning is intuitively better than other approaches, why don’t all SirsiDynix customers take advantage of it? Well, they may just not know what to expect in a hands-on learning class delivered over the Internet. For some, distance learning is a new enough concept that it may be difficult to consider how you could pull off an Internet class in a hands-on learning environment. So to respond to this concern, we have created an opportunity for everyone to experience the SirsiDynix hands-on learning approach at no cost. The experience lasts 20 minutes, and it includes detailed descriptions of the various hands-on learning classes offered and an opportunity to actually go through the hands-on learning experience. We feel that this opportunity will enable you to determine just how effective these experiences can be for you and your staff as you migrate to SirsiDynix Symphony.

To sign up for this free class, go to https://sirsidynix.webex.com and enter “Hands on Labs” into the Search field at the top of the Training Center tab. Then click on the class that meets your schedule.

Mike Hilmo
Software Trainer, Operations

Being lovers, my wife and I spent some time in August wandering through Virginia (Williamsburg, Monticello, Shenandoah, Tangier Island...). Turns out, Bing and Google both produce very helpful results when you search for, say, “hotels near charlottesville va”. Both produce a list of hotels highlighted on a map. From the map, you can look at pictures, compare locations, check prices, and even zoom in for a panoramic street view.

The Bing Travel interface had an advantage in the way results were sorted by price. The Google interface had an advantage in the maps feature because when you zoom in or out, the search is re-launched and other hotel options appear in the view. Mind bogglingly cool stuff.

As amazing as the price and map stuff was, though, the most useful piece of information I encountered may have been the integrated reviews and ratings in the Google interface (Bing didn’t have enough reviews to be of any real use). One night, for example, we were tempted by what looked like a great price. The brand (hotel chain) was one we’d trusted before and the location seemed perfect for our plans. The reviews, though, told us what the map could not. “Sticky tables in the rooms.” “Mold in the bathroom.” “Some guests seem to be living there.” “Management surly and indifferent.” We’re price conscious, but not that price conscious—we went elsewhere.

The reviews and ratings are community content that Google is harvesting into their interface from non-Google sources. Most of the hotels I looked at on Google had more than 60 reviews that were harvested from online traveler communities like priceline.com and tripadvisor.com. When I can quickly browse through 60 reviews for a single hotel, I feel like I’ve got a pretty good sense of the place, a huge benefit to a casual searcher like me. People generally aren’t coming to Google to have a conversation about hotels. They might occasionally comment on a conversation they find there, but the vast majority of Google users are only going to be interested in reading what others have written.

I think the same holds true for ratings and reviews in library interfaces. The bulk of interesting reviews for a library interface are going to come from communities that come together specifically to talk about books (Goodreads, for example) or movies (IMDB, for example). As a builder of library interfaces, I’m interested in tapping into those communities. Users of my interface may occasionally want to add their comments to the mix, but mostly they want to see what others have said.

Jared Oates
Director of Product Strategy, Engineering

What makes a great Chicago Style Pizza? Is it the sauce, the crust, how about mounds of mozzarella cheese, mushrooms, or green peppers? I personally love all of those parts, but as Remy, the chef/rat for “Ratatouille” shows, it’s when they all come together that makes it great.

I was sitting in a post go-live meeting with a customer who had just gone through their migration to SirsiDynix Symphony. The library had used every type of training we offered: web recordings, computer based training, classes taught over the internet, and onsite. I threw out a softball question to the library director, “Which method of training did your site like the best.” Of course the answer was going to be onsite; everybody loves onsite, or so I thought. The answer? “We thought it was all great.”

The library director then went on to expound on the virtues of what we call the blended learning approach. “The web recordings allowed us (the library staff) to work around our work schedule, and to repeat them as many times as they needed to.” “The internet classes allowed us to ask questions and learn from others taking the classes.” “Onsite enabled us to focus on our workflow with the help of the trainer.” “We thought it was all great.” I carried around a grin on my face for the next two days based of the comments that library director made.

That is our goal as a training team--to provide a blended learning approach with individual options for training. These options can stand on their own, but when pulled or “blended” together, the learning experiences are enhanced.

Ken Bonney
Training Supervisor, Operations

Several people I’ve talked to lately wish they could do collection development with information they can’t easily get right now.

Here’s a sampling from the “wish I had” list:

• Listings of the most highly reviewed or recommended titles from social networking sites like Goodreads,LibraryThing, or Chilifresh to guide new title purchases
• A report that indicates likely candidates for re-location based on local demand within a system (not circulating at one library, some circulation at another)
• Listings of articles or academic journals that are likely candidates for acquisition based on citation rates or less formal buzz within specific disciplines
• A list of titles that have the highest ratio of holds to orders and copies on hand
• A list of not-yet-acquired titles that have a high user tag correlation with titles circulated within specific address boundaries. The intent here is to identify the interests of specific populations
• A list of the titles circulated within specific address boundaries that have the highest rates of user reviews

Some ideas above are fairly easy to do. Some are minor variations on what is available through existing reports. Some require information sources beyond the catalog. One at least may raise some privacy concerns. None of them are impossible. All reflect an effort to anticipate the interests of the patrons they serve.

As I look ahead with our reporting tools, our new web services, and what libraries can do to provide delight in their communities, this is the kind of thinking I thrive on.

Jared Oates
Director of Product Strategy, Engineering

My colleague Jim Wilson enjoyed visits with several customers on the U.S. West Coast this week. Jim’s conversations with customers always reveal “how I done it good at my place” and “if only I could do a little more” topics. This week’s visits were no exception and led to review of a common challenge and some great ways to handle it in our Horizon and Symphony systems.

Usage of library collections constantly expands to encompass a growing array of electronic resources. Some users in the community focus almost exclusively on using databases, e-books and other resources from home, office and campus locations. While this usage typically doesn’t require a traditional check out transaction, it usually does involve some type of authentication. A question posed during Jim’s trip was how to capture this type of usage so that the library system considers users taking advantage of e-resources active and does not attempt to purge them as part of inactive borrower clean up. Libraries using Horizon’s RPA or SIP2 responder for authentication can include consideration of the borrower’s last authentication date in the purge process to avoid removing borrowers who use the library for access to electronic resources. Libraries who upgrade to SirsiDynix Symphony 3.3 can follow a similar process by indicating that SIP2 should update the user’s last activity date.

These simple changes in process provide great benefits for public relations, ensuring that all users can continue to enjoy full access to the library’s collections while the library maintains a steady or growing user base.

- Berit
VP of Product Development