<< [Signs] would take care of the "I want books on this subject" >>

No way Roy. It is impossible to always put together all the books on the same topic--because different people have different ways of slicing and dicing the 'same topic'. Really, this isn't just theoretical, it is in practice too. If bookstores make it _appear_ to work, it's perhaps only because the number of titles in even a very large bookstore is still a fairly small library.

But yeah, I'm still in favor of better signage.

But if patrons think there's only ONE place on the shelves for books about ants, Antarctica, algebra, or anarchism--they are missing out on potentially valuable books.

Not so sure about others being good about standards. In self-serv business transactions all those credit card readers are different. Some ask for ZIP, the card is held and swiped different ways, some ask if it is credit or debit.... How about doors, we have long known that they should only have handles on the pull side and plates on the push side. Yet, that is often ignored.

Not that we can't be better, just that we don't have a monopoly on poor non-standard design.

There was some good work done on catalog displays but it was ignored by all.

You needn't apologize for denigrating catalogs. Years ago you wrote, "MARC must die," and ever since you wrote that, MARC has increased in every way possible. So, I say, please keep trashing library catalogs, because the more you trash them, the more they grow. Your silly obsession is helping us.

Ok, I'll bite. What does a compelling, useful, and inspiring discovery, reader's advisory, or delivery service (services that focus on the bread and butter of the experience with the collections) look like? I have my biases given my current employer but it's hard for me to picture what these look like outside of the catalog experience?

Steve, fair question. Let me take one example. If we get away from the notion that everything must be done through the catalog as it mostly has been configured and used up to this point (with maybe cosmetic tweaks here and there) there are other things that become possible. For example, we know that reader's advisory services are very desirable at minimum in a public library context. So why not create a service just for that? In the library you could set up a self-scan station that allows a user to put in their book and find others like it. No typing at all, no trying to figure out the catalog interface, etc. Online it might be a bit more difficult because they will likely need to give us something to work with, but the problem is that as far as I can tell no one is thinking about solving these problems independently of the way the catalog has pretty much always been used in the past.

Sorry, the above comment is from me, not Steve. Don't know WHAT I was thinking.

Steve, fair question. Let me take one example. If we get away from the notion that everything must be done through the catalog as it mostly has been configured and used up to this point (with maybe cosmetic tweaks here and there) there are other things that become possible. For example, we know that reader's advisory services are very desirable at minimum in a public library context. So why not create a service just for that? In the library you could set up a self-scan station that allows a user to put in their book and find others like it. No typing at all, no trying to figure out the catalog interface, etc. Online it might be a bit more difficult because they will likely need to give us something to work with, but the problem is that as far as I can tell no one is thinking about solving these problems independently of the way the catalog has pretty much always been used in the past.

I absolutely agree that a library catalog is hardly anything more than an inventory of library’s holdings – print or electronic. As a discovery tool, library catalogs fail miserably. Our problems with the “next generation catalog” come from the assumption that OPAC can become something it isn’t; and we should stop pretending it can.
Every time I have an urge to make an improvement to our catalog, I remember how much I dislike the very concept of OPAC – and the urge goes away.
I wish that OPAC’s shortcomings were just another of Roy’s “silly obsessions”! I’m glad that Jeffrey brought up the MARC analogy. The only reason MARC can’t dye is because it was a stillborn child; and the bulk of our OPAC problems are caused by the fact that MARC still powers library catalog data. (BTW, I can’t possible imagine, what “MARC has increased in every way possible” means. Failures of FRBR and RDA? – But perhaps it’s a different discussion. Or was this a witty joke?))
Librarians proudly carry standards as their banner, ignoring that most of these standards are meaningless or useless. We might as well try implementing standards useful for our patrons.
OPAC is as dead as MARC. Think of the opportunities!

Thanks, Roy. I have a better sense of what you're getting at with the self-check reader's advisory example and can picture variations on that theme (iPhone camera/barcode detection as input, etc.) for reader's advisory and delivery services. And I can appreciate that discovery happens elsewhere. It's delivery of the physical that forces you back to the inventory control experience and to the local library.

As I'm thinking about it now, it seems like that next-gen delivery services will determine the fate of the library. Online delivery of music and movies will soon get close in terms of price (approaching free) and convenience to cut the library delivery of these out of the loop altogether. Prospects for mainstream online delivery of books or mainstream use of online bookswapping sites are uncertain at best but will be interesting to watch to see how this shakes out.