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Annual Users' Meeting

KINETICA EXPERT ADVISORY GROUP ON REFERENCE AND END USER SERVICES REPORT

Background

The National Library plans to develop Kinetica to provide improved services for reference library staff and end users.

Terms of reference

The Kinetica Expert Advisory Group on Reference and End User Services was established to advise the National Library on matters relating to the use of Kinetica by library staff and end users for general research and reference purposes. Advice may be sought on the functionality, interfaces and performance of the Kinetica system in the support of reference services. Advice may also be sought on related matters such as training, marketing and pricing.

Membership

This advisory group was established on 21 September 1999. The members of the group are experienced reference librarians from the state, university and special library sectors, and National Library representatives. The current membership of the group is:

Therese Lake State Library of New South Wales
Pamela Leuzinger University of Technology, Sydney
Sharon Karasmanis LaTrobe University
Roxanne Missingham National Library of Australia
Margaret Thornton CSIRO, Black Mountain Library
Bryony De La Motte National Library of Australia
Rob Walls National Library of Australia (Convenor)

Julie Marshall (La Trobe University) has recently retired from the EAG and has been replaced by Sharon Karasmanis. Julie made an extremely valuable contribution to the work of the group.

Activities

Review of the KineticaWeb interface
The group reviewed the functionality and useability of the KineticaWeb interface for reference and end users. The review included a comparative evaluation with similar products. In December 1999, the group made a number of recommendations for the development of KineticaWeb. This work was a major contribution to the formulation of the development priorities for KineticaWeb (future.html). A number of the group’s recommendations have already been implemented and others will be included in future development of the service.
Long term needs of end users
End users have many needs for information from a bibliographic service. In addition to easy high quality searching they often have a need to download records into bibliographic software packages such as Procite and Endnote. The Group explored the current output options from the Kinetica and found the format was not ready for easy transfer for this purpose. The summary of recommendations includes a section on formatted outputs and marking records for convenient use in bibliographic packages.
Evaluation of the use of KineticaWeb by end users
The National Library has provided library users in its reading rooms with access to KineticaWeb since the commencement of the service and has conducted a trial of end user access. La Trobe University made the KineticaWeb service available to academic staff and postgraduate students as a trial from November 1999. Reports of these trials are included elsewhere in the agenda.
Development of documentation
La Trobe University Library, the State Library of New South Wales and the National Library have each produced documentation to support end user access in their organisations. To encourage and support other libraries in providing end user access this documentation has been made freely available to all Kinetica customers via the Kinetica documentation web page (kineticadoc_other.html).

Conclusion

The Expert Advisory Group on Reference and End User Services made a major contribution to the formulation of priorities for the development of KineticaWeb. The work of the group is reflected in the recent upgrade of KineticaWeb and will influence future upgrades. The group will continue to provide advice to the National Library on the development and implementation of end user access to Kinetica.

Kinetica Expert Advisory Group on Reference and End User Services
August 9, 2000

 


Attachment 1.
Summary of Expert Advisory Group recommendations for the development of KineticaWeb – December 1999

The Expert Advisory Group on Reference and End User Services has made a number of recommendations for the development of the KineticaWeb service. These are summarised below. The EAG welcomes your comments. The National Library is investigating the feasibility of implementing these recommendations.

 

1. Searching

The EAG recommends that KineticaWeb be developed to provide both basic (simple to use) and advanced (for more complex searches by experienced searchers) interfaces which can be used easily by library staff and end users.

1.1. Basic Search Screen

A Basic Search screen should be provided to enable users to input simple searches. This option is primarily intended to allow library staff and end users to search for a known item.

1.2 Advanced Search Screen

The current ‘Single Database Search’ screen should be simplified to provide an Advanced Search screen. This option is intended to meet the needs of serious end users and the bulk of searching by library staff.

Direct access to commonly used limiters such as date of publication, place of publication, type of material and language should be provided by including these as boxes at the bottom of the search screen. Words should be used instead of, or in addition to, symbols for ‘greater than’ ‘less than’ and ‘equal to’. The number of search boxes should be reduced from five to four.

The number of indexes available for searching the NBD should be reduced to the following:

Primary indexes
Amicus number
Any keyword
Author (Name)
Author (Name) keyword
Corporate name
Conference/Meeting Name
ISBN
ISSN
LC control number
Note keyword
Publisher name keyword
Subject heading
Subject keyword
Title
Title keyword
Secondary indexes
Australian Content Indicator
Bibliographic Level
Country/State/Province
Date of Publication
Form of Item
Government publication
ILL Library Symbol
Language
Material Type
Nature of Contents
SE: Type

1.3 Command Search screen

A Command Search screen should be provided. This option would allow experienced searchers to search Kinetica using the full range of indexes by inputting a command search string.

1.4 Other developments of the search interface

A "CLEAR" button should be added to the Search screen. This would clear (reset) both the "search boxes" and "index menus" simultaneously. At present it is necessary to clear each box individually.

A "NEW SEARCH" button should be added to the Result Summary and View Results screens to enable users to go to a screen in one action without the need to re-select the database to be searched.

Support for the Nesting of search terms should be improved. Users should be able to determine the order in which Boolean operators are used. At present it is necessary to always start a search with the terms or phrases you intend to "OR" together and then use other operators.

When Browsing the indexes, users should be able to navigate directly from a heading to the bibliographic records attached to it. Currently it is necessary to run a new search before being able to view the bibliographic records.

On the Search History Screen, allow users to create a new search by combining two or more earlier searches using Boolean operators.

For single database searching, the NBD should be the default database.

 

2. Interface Design

The EAG recommends that KineticaWeb be developed to make it as easy to use as possible. This recommendation is reflected in all of the suggestions made by the EAG. It is also the basis of the following specific suggestions about the design of the KineticaWeb interface.

The error messages used in the system should be made clearer. Simple direct language should be used to describe error conditions.

A toolbar should be placed at the bottom of all displays, as well as the top.

The "Search progress screen" should be removed. This screen can keep refreshing for several minutes. The presence of so many screens in the browser cache can make it difficult to go back to an earlier screen.

 

3. Display of Search Results

The EAG recommends that KineticaWeb be developed to provide more flexible options for the display of search results. Ideally, users should be able to select the fields that they wish to display and print. If this is not possible an alternative would be to provide a Medium record display format. This record should include:

  • Personal name/Organisation
  • Title
  • Publication details
  • Physical description
  • Series title
  • Note fields

Hypertext links should be provided from holdings displays in KineticaWeb to Australian Libraries Gateway information.

It would be better to display 20 Brief records at a time instead of 10 as is presently the case.

 

4. Output of Search Results

The EAG recommends that KineticaWeb be developed to simplify the marking, saving and output of records. It should be possible to save and email records in all formats (eg. Short, Extended and MARC). It should also be possible to Keep (Mark) records using boxes on search result screen. Users should have the option to select ALL records in a result set for output and not have to select each one individually.

Reference users would prefer the default format for printing and emailing records to e ASCII not USMARC. It should also be possible to output search results in comma delimited files to allow loading into bibliographic packages.


Draft agenda Kinetica Annual Users' Meeting 2000