We weren’t looking for a known item - we did a keyword search and the first result in Koha made more sense to use than the first page of results in Voyager. Now this is a setting on the part of the library in question and the way Koha indexes and returns results. But it wasn’t just the results - but the results page that seemed to make my sister feel more comfortable and welcome.

We weren’t looking for a known item - we did a keyword search and the first result in Koha made more sense to use than the first page of results in Voyager. Now this is a setting on the part of the library in question and the way Koha indexes and returns results. But it wasn’t just the results - but the results page that seemed to make my sister feel more comfortable and welcome.

Janice, I think Nicole hinted at the answer. First and foremost, the top search had a match as the first hit. (I’d guess from the search it was a known item search)

Were I to go by my own informal user testings I’d guess the following:

1) The Voyager page stuck close to the default template, which has a lot of options and a lot of scary help text. People do not like this.

2) Depending on the tweaking of indexes, it can be really annoying searching for a known item within a catalog. I remember place that seemed to have any keyword match in the subject headings heavily weighed. This meant when just typing in a title for a fiction book into the keyword search rarely brought up an match, even an exact title match, instead bring up general works.

3) From what I’ve observed most people ignore most facets most of the time. However, they will be used occasionally to simply focus the search. (I haven’t done a lot of formal research on this yet). so limiting by format or location essentially. Doable in Voyager as well, but not as clear or obvious.

Janice, I think Nicole hinted at the answer. First and foremost, the top search had a match as the first hit. (I’d guess from the search it was a known item search)

Were I to go by my own informal user testings I’d guess the following:

1) The Voyager page stuck close to the default template, which has a lot of options and a lot of scary help text. People do not like this.

2) Depending on the tweaking of indexes, it can be really annoying searching for a known item within a catalog. I remember place that seemed to have any keyword match in the subject headings heavily weighed. This meant when just typing in a title for a fiction book into the keyword search rarely brought up an match, even an exact title match, instead bring up general works.

3) From what I’ve observed most people ignore most facets most of the time. However, they will be used occasionally to simply focus the search. (I haven’t done a lot of formal research on this yet). so limiting by format or location essentially. Doable in Voyager as well, but not as clear or obvious.

I’ve sent an email to my sister to ask her to answer you from a user’s perspective.

Your question is what makes Koha different from a tweaked ILS. First, we’re only talking about the OPAC here - remember to keep the two (ILS & OPAC) separate in your mind - the OPAC is a part of the ILS.

As for your question the answer may well be nothing (appearance wise) - but the problem is that the OPAC that my sister looked at wasn’t tweaked - it was out of the box and anyone who uses Voyager knows that it is damn near impossible to customize - so most Voyager systems aren’t tweaked. In fact very few OPACs are tweaked to include facets and book jackets these days - so when the out of the box package is already made to look that way - it means less work for the people in house and it means a better interface for our users.

I’ve sent an email to my sister to ask her to answer you from a user’s perspective.

Your question is what makes Koha different from a tweaked ILS. First, we’re only talking about the OPAC here - remember to keep the two (ILS & OPAC) separate in your mind - the OPAC is a part of the ILS.

As for your question the answer may well be nothing (appearance wise) - but the problem is that the OPAC that my sister looked at wasn’t tweaked - it was out of the box and anyone who uses Voyager knows that it is damn near impossible to customize - so most Voyager systems aren’t tweaked. In fact very few OPACs are tweaked to include facets and book jackets these days - so when the out of the box package is already made to look that way - it means less work for the people in house and it means a better interface for our users.

I don’t see a lot of difference between the Koha catalog and the tweaked ILS catalogs. Point me, Nicole!

I don’t see a lot of difference between the Koha catalog and the tweaked ILS catalogs. Point me, Nicole!

Owen - glad to share

Owen - glad to share

I’m a huge believer that we need to involve our users more at all stages - it’s no good library staff making decisions based on what we think users want when we haven’t actually asked them.

I’m a huge believer that we need to involve our users more at all stages - it’s no good library staff making decisions based on what we think users want when we haven’t actually asked them.