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+1 to Sean's questions. I've considered implementing a shelf browse system
myself, but I am wary. It's a huge amount of work, and I have no idea who
it will benefit or how much. It's one of those things that certainly seems
cool to me, but unfortunately I am not the target audience of our website
(but it would be much easier if I were). Any usage stats would be greatly
appreciated.

Josh Welker


-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Sean Hannan
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2015 8:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] state of the art in virtual shelf browse?

For those investigating a shelf browse (and for those that have
implemented one), I have a few questions:

Where is the feature demand originating? Staff? Faculty? Students? Grad
students? Undergrad students? (Not to exclude publics or special
libraries, but this seems to be an academic catalog feature, when it shows
up.)

What is the level of familiarity with library/library services/library
systems for those that request this feature?

Is implementing shelf browse an attempt to work around some other catalog
deficiency (e.g. weak subject cataloging)?

Does the corpus have the cataloging data to support such a feature? (A lot
of ebook packages do not have call numbers, for example.) What零 the
percentage? Is that reasonable?

How do you plan on tracking use of the feature? What would you consider to
be a success rate? 20% of sessions? 5%? 1%?

At what point do you sunset the feature? Expand upon it?

How long will the feature take to implement? How many staff will be
involved? What is the ROI?

Will all of your users understand the visual implementation on the page?
How do you plan on testing it?

Does the shelf metaphor still hold for your users? How do you know?

-Sean

On 1/28/15, 8:30 AM, "Darylyne Provost" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>We're interested in implementing a virtual browse feature as well, so I
>was glad to find this post.
>
>Since we have a shared catalog and the feature is currently under
>discussion by our partner institutions, we're also considering
>implementing it for our installation of Summon first. I've seen U of
>Huddersfield, but am wondering if there are additional examples?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Darylyne
>
>**************************************
>Darylyne Provost
>Assistant Director for Systems, Web, & Emerging Technologies Colby
>College
>207.859.5117
>[log in to unmask]
>
>On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 3:48 PM, Gerritsma, Wouter
><[log in to unmask]>
>wrote:
>
>> Beautiful to see that the meticulously recorded book height is put
>> into use.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
>> Of Harper, Cynthia
>> Sent: dinsdag 27 januari 2015 21:27
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] state of the art in virtual shelf browse?
>>
>> What testimony to what a difference presentation can make!  So much
>>better  than basically the same functionality, but in a text list, as
>>shown in our  old III Webpac.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
>> Of Cole Hudson
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 9:57 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] state of the art in virtual shelf browse?
>>
>> Hi Jenn,
>>
>> Just to add one example more to the mix, we've built a shelf browser
>>based  on Harvard's Stackview/Stacklife project--adding to it a z39.50
>>connector  and organizing results by call number. This search works
>>across all of  holdings, regardless of the books' locations. (Click
>>the link, then under  the Books and Media box, click See on Shelf to
>>look at our shelf
>>browser.)
>>
>> http://library.wayne.edu/quicksearch/#q=the%20hobbit
>>
>> Also, our code is on Github: https://github.com/WSULib/SVCatConnector
>>
>> Cole
>>