People sometimes think that saying something is more “usable” is a way of saying that you like using it better. And then they’ll reply that maybe they like using it some other way and you’re at a stalemate. In point of fact, usability is testable and quantifiable. There are a lot of places you can go to read about research-based usability, things that work for most people. I just got this link from Twitter today: 10 Usability Tips Based on Research Studies. For people who want a bunch more stuff like this, I highly recommend Usability.gov’s Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines (pdf, 21MB ) which are not only great reading but they’re government documents, so free to repurpose and republish.
Category: access
SkyRiver vs. OCLC antitrust lawsuit
“In a move that could have far-reaching implications for competition in the library software and technology services industry, SkyRiver Technology Solutions, LLC has filed suit in federal court in San Francisco against OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. The suit alleges that OCLC, a purported non-profit with a membership of 72,000 libraries worldwide, is unlawfully monopolizing the markets for cataloging services, interlibrary lending, and bibliographic data, and attempting to monopolize the market for integrated library systems, by anticompetitive and exclusionary practices. ” Karen Coyle has a great series of posts explaining what is really going on
- Sky River sues OCLC
- the lawsuit explained, part 1, part 2
- She also points to Marshall Breeding’s article on the suit, written for Library Journal.
The article quotes Karen Coyle as saying
As the representative of a major ILS company explained to me a few years ago, the library market is a zero-sum game: every time one vendor wins, others must lose, because the number of customers is not growing. The library market is a pie that can be divided into any number of slices, but the pie remains the same. This makes the rise of any one company a threat to all. In the commercial marketplace, the vendors compete over functionality and price. With its non-profit status OCLC has a distinct advantage: it doesn’t pay federal income tax on the revenues it brings in. That said, given its size and depth of its involvement in day-to-day library operations, it is plausible that even without its non-profit status OCLC would be a formidable competitor for ILS vendors.
Interesting times indeed. Follow the conversation on Twitter by looking for the skyoclc tag or read posts to the autocat mailing list that mention SkyRiver and OCLC. [via openlibrary]
remember CIPA?
Remember CIPA? And remember how we were always holding out hope that someone would challenge it in an “as applied” challenge, an adult who wanted to view material that was blocked by the filters? Well there’s been a challenge, in Washington state, and the State Supreme Court ruled that filtering for adults was in fact permissible, lumping it in with collection development. The case concerns the North Central Regional Library System Opinion here and dissenting opinion here. Interestingly, the sites that were contentious in this case were web sites on firearms, not pornography or otherwise racy topics. Can you see WomenShooters.com at your library?
NCRL’s filtering policy does not prevent any speech and in particular it does not ban or attempt to ban online speech before it occurs. Rather, it is a standard for making determinations about what will be included in the collection available to NCRL’s patrons.
Thus, NCRL’s filtering policy, when applied, is not comparable to removal of items from NCRL’s collection, but rather acquisition of materials to add to its collection. NCRL has made the only kind of realistic choice of materials that is possible without unduly and unnecessarily curtailing the information available to a bare trickle — or a few drops — of the vast river of information available on the Internet.
This may be the set up for a very interesting lawsuit. I hope they appeal.
One School, One Library, One Librarian
Why South Africa is failing its children and what people are doing to try to solve the problem.
[F]ewer than 7% of schools in South Africa have a functioning library. Perhaps 21% have some kind of structure called a reading room, but these are usually used for classrooms, are seldom stocked properly and do not have a library professional in charge to ensure that the right books are there and that they are used properly. The lack of libraries compounds the many problems, such as teachers’ poor subject knowledge and poor access to textbooks, that plague our schooling system. These factors combine to make our reading outcomes, at all grade levels, among the worst in Africa.
The Usable Library
Short attractive website telling us some things to keep in mind. The Usable Library. Thanks for the CC attribution on the poster!