Actually, I don't think this is ideal for a lot of people who prefer
browsing to searching.  The whole premise that you have to come up with
a query in the first place is the showstopper for some folks.  
 
There are browsers and there are searchers.  If your system starts with
a search box, the browse-oriented will put in a highly generic term like
History.  Faceted search can help them from there, as could LCSH lists
for that matter.  But if these same browse-oriented users constantly go
to the library and head straight for QA76.9 H85, well then, that's the
closest they really have to a "search" term.
 
Shelf browsing interfaces, as well as browseable image libraries
organized by collection, make sense to me for this reason.  I would
always like to see a search box available for the search-oriented, but
to me, one of the failings of the OPAC today is the absence of support
for the browse-oriented. 
 
 
Genny Engel
Sonoma County Library
[log in to unmask]
707 545-0831 x581
www.sonomalibrary.org
 
 

>>> [log in to unmask] 10/01/08 05:21AM >>>

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?