Melvyl Matters
Volume 1, Number 3, March 2005
In this issue:
- What's to Like?
- The Union-ness
- Search Types
- Search Indexes
- "Request Works Well"
- Online Resources
- User Interface
- And the rest...
In our last issue of Melvyl Matters we discussed the characteristics
of the Melvyl Catalog library staff users liked least, as reported
in a recent survey of UC library staff http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/melvyl/melvylstaff_survey_nov2004.pdf
In addition to the minuses, there were an equal number of positive
aspects our respondents reported liking about the catalog.
Not surprisingly, the most often cited positive comment about the Melvyl Catalog was its “union-ness”. People appreciated the “ability to easily search across the entire UC system”, to see “what’s available on other campuses (and then get it.)”. They liked the fact that a “record for any particular item is enhanced by records from all the UCs”. One of the original goals of moving Melvyl to a new platform was to combine the previously separated books and journals (CAT and PE) databases, and respondents did comment appreciatively, “you can now search both journal titles and books.”
Respondents also commented positively on the variety of ways to search in the Melvyl catalog, and mentioned by name advanced search, command search and the “easy search options. Users understand what you are showing them immediately.” They liked the fact that “you immediately come to a search box.”
Another slew of favorable responses were aimed at the search indexes themselves. “Being able to search by ‘conference’ is great!” and [I like] “all the ways to find government information.” Several respondents commented on their enthusiasm for keyword searching, and others “the separate search for journal titles.” One commented on the “wid=campus command for getting the number of titles at a campus.” (If you’re not familiar with this feature, in Command Search you can create a search such as wid=ucsc to determine how many titles are in the Melvyl catalog from UC Santa Cruz. wid stands for campus location.)
The Interlibrary Loan Request feature on Melvyl is one respondents especially like. They commented on the “ease of requesting library materials from other institutions” and appreciating “patron initiated requesting from Melvyl.”
Several respondents valued the “direct links to online content”. One respondent commented, “Online links are often available there before the links get put into our [campus] OPAC.”
Whether its called “user interface” or “look and feel”, survey respondents commented favorably on Melvyl’s “visually appealing interface”; its “clean, uncluttered appearance”. They report that it is easily read at first glance and has a “clean, uncrowded look”.
Other positive comments were made about the general ease-of-use of the catalog, the optional limits, its robustness, the ability to view other campus circulation information, the Browse feature, Help, saving searches, and the ability to change and search collections.
The Melvyl catalog is to some degree a living entity. We continue to seek improvements in areas in which the catalog has flaws and to make enhancements as we see opportunities or hear from campus staff, and in partnership with the larger library community.