On Wed, 1 Oct 2008 23:39:46 -0500, "Nate Vack" <[log in to unmask]> said:
> On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 7:34 PM, Naomi Dushay <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> 
> > 1.  The user is not broken. Our faculty are very vocal in desiring a
> > "virtual shelf list" that will allow them to, given a specific item, look
> > for "closely located" items.  Call numbers have facilitated co-location of
> > (some) related physical materials, which facilitates a browsing experience
> > that users enjoy.  Maybe it's nostalgia, maybe it's something else ... but
> > they enjoy it and find it useful. They are used to call numbers, and by god,
> > they want call numbers.   Who are we to naysay?
> 
> I don't mean to naysay -- I just suspect that what what people think
> of when shelf browsing -- namely, the big set of books arranged in LC
> order -- may not be the part of the experience that makes shelf
> browsing so special.

One of the more interesting anecdotes from the Evergreen front lines I
heard of late has to do with shelf browsing. A librarian remarked that
though she personally never used it, she observed a patron
enthusiastically show another patron how to shelf-browse in the PINES
catalog. I don't use Evergreen's shelf-browse much myself, because I
typically hit a catalog with a list of known items and stick with that.
But I do have a weakness for craft and project books, with their
colorful jackets and tempting titles (not that I ever *do* any of these
crafts or projects), and I like to shelf-browse in the PINES catalog for
these. I definitely see how patrons would like this. 

So I'm with Genny. For a number of reasons, including analyses done in
previous jobs, I agree that people want browse. But of course, they want
GOOD browse -- easy, functional, attractive, and available. 

-- 
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| Karen G. Schneider
| Community Librarian
| Equinox Software Inc. "The Evergreen Experts"
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