All Over!

Many thanks to everyone who responded and this survey has now closed...


Quick OPAC Survey

I'm giving a short presentation about OPACs at the Library and Information Show in April and I'd love to know what you think about the subject. I'm planning to include results from this quick survey in my presentation and I'll post the full results on my weblog.

I think it should only take a few minutes to complete the survey and please don't feel you have to answer everything!

Dave Pattern
Library Systems Manager
University of Huddersfield, UK

1) OPAC Happiness

On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 is extremely unhappy and 10 is extremely happy), how happy are you with your OPAC?
1 10

2) Cutting Edge or Yesterday's News?

One criticism of OPACs is that they rarely have cutting edge features (or perhaps even basic features) that our users expect from modern web sites. On a scale of 1 to 10, how well do you think your OPAC meets the needs and expectations of your users?
1 10

If "2007" represents a cutting edge OPAC with all the features both you and your users would expect, how far in the past do you feel your current OPAC is?

Have you ever suffered from "OPAC envy" when looking at someone else's OPAC?

yes
no

3) Child's play?

On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is extremely easy), how easy do you find your OPAC is to use?
1 10

On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is extremely easy), how easy do you think one of your average users finds your OPAC is to use?

1 10

On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is extremely important), how important do you think it is that an OPAC is easy and intuitive to use?

1 10

Do you run any face-to-face training or induction/introduction courses on "how to use" the OPAC with your users?

yes
no

4) More Cowbell

Please rate how important (where 10 is extremely important) you feel the following features are to your users in a modern OPAC. If you already have the feature in your OPAC, or you are planning to add it soon, please tick the relevant boxes.

"Did you mean" type suggestions for failed keyword searches...
1 10
we already have this feature in our OPAC
we're planning to add this feature soon

"People who borrowed this, also borrowed" type borrowing suggestions...
1 10
we already have this feature in our OPAC
we're planning to add this feature soon

The ability for your users to add ratings to items in the OPAC...
1 10
we already have this feature in our OPAC
we're planning to add this feature soon

The ability for your users to add comments and reviews to items in the OPAC...
1 10
we already have this feature in our OPAC
we're planning to add this feature soon

The ability for your users to tag items in the OPAC (i.e. user created folksonomies)...
1 10
we already have this feature in our OPAC
we're planning to add this feature soon

Facetted browsing (i.e. like NCSU Library) in the OPAC...
1 10
we already have this feature in our OPAC
we're planning to add this feature soon

The ability for the OPAC to learn about each user and make customized suggestions (like Amazon does)...
1 10
we already have this feature in our OPAC
we're planning to add this feature soon

RSS feeds (e.g. new book lists or keyword search results)...
1 10
we already have this feature in our OPAC
we're planning to add this feature soon

Embedding the OPAC into other places (e.g. portals, search engines, etc) so that we take the OPAC to where the user is (rather than forcing the user to come to the OPAC)...
1 10
we already have this feature in our OPAC
we're planning to add this feature soon

Enriched content in the OPAC (e.g. book covers, table of contents, formal reviews, etc)
1 10
we already have this feature in our OPAC
we're planning to add this feature soon

Are there any other features that you think should be in a modern OPAC that you don't currently have in yours?

5) Final Comments

If you have anything else you'd like to say about OPACs, please use the box below. If you would like your comments to be attributed to you, please include your name and the library you work for.

6) ...and a couple of optional questions that were added to the survey on 27/March/2007!

What type of library do you work for?

Which product(s) or supplier(s) do you use for you OPAC?


To submit your response, just click on the button below -- many thanks for taking the time to do this!