I agree with this in general - and this was my point about the 'Coverflow' in iTunes, that it allows a variety of sorting methods - although it is still limited.

I think there are perhaps some other factors as well. Shelf-browsing allows users to wander into 'their' part of the library and look at stuff - but I don't think most OPACs have the equivalent. With a bookstore (physically and virtually) we might see genre sections we can browse. This might also work for public libraries? In research libraries we tend to just present the classification without further glossing I think - perhaps this is something we ought to consider online?

The other thing that occurs to me about browsing by class mark is that it presents a 'spectrum' view of a kind. This could be easily lost in the type of 'search and sort' system you suggest (although I still think this is a good idea btw). At the same time I'm a bit reluctant to stop at providing a classification browse, as it seems inherently limited.

I agree with the point about browsing the shelves and exploring the material in more depth are related - which suggests integration with other content-rich services are needed (Google Books, e-books, other providers)

Owen Stephens
Assistant Director: eStrategy and Information Resources
Central Library
Imperial College London
South Kensington Campus
London
SW7 2AZ
 
t: +44 (0)20 7594 8829
e: [log in to unmask]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Keith Jenkins
> Sent: 01 October 2008 13:22
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] creating call number browse
> 
> I think that one advantage of browsing a physical shelf is that the
> shelf is linear, so it's very easy to methodically browse from the
> left end of the shelf to the right, and have a sense that you haven't
> accidentally missed anything.  (Ignore, for the moment, all the books
> that happen to be checked out and not on the shelf...)
> 
> Online, linearity is no longer a constraint, which is a very good
> thing, but it does have some drawbacks as well.  There is usually no
> clear way to follow a series of "more like this" links and get a sense
> that you have seen all the books that the library has on a given
> subject.  Yes, you might get lucky and discover some great things, but
> it usually involves a lot of aimless wandering, coming back to the
> same highly-related items again and again, while missing some
> slightly-more-distantly-related items.
> 
> Ideally, the user should be able to run a query, retrieve a set of
> items, sort them however he wants (by author, date, call number, some
> kind of dynamic clustering algorithm, whatever), and be able to
> methodically browse from one end of that sort order to the other
> without any fear of missing something.
> 
> Keith
> 
> 
> On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 6:08 PM, Stephens, Owen
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > I think we need to understand the
> > way people use browse to navigate resources if we are to successfully
> bring
> > the concept of collection browsing to our navigation tools. David
> suggests
> > that we should think of a shelf browse as a type of 'show me more
> like this'
> > which is definitely one reason to browse - but is it the only reason?