Columbia College Chicago Library

Usability Study for Next Generation Catalog Interface

Intern: Rahan Khozein

Code: COLUMC-01

One student with an interest in web usability and design will conduct a product usability study with students faculty and staff at Columbia College Chicago Library. In 2008 Columbia College Library participated as a test site for a next generation library catalog interface called VuFind. Hosted by the Consortia for Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois this alternative interface to our library catalog is minimally customized and although accessible from the Columbia College Library website has not been widely introduced to students or faculty at the institution. The student will conduct face-to-face usability interviews with members of the Columbia College community. The interviews will be based on a predefined set of test questions. In addition to conducting the interviews the student tester will be responsible to compile and clearly summarize all results and findings. Findings may be used in planning customization implementation and marketing of the VuFind interface in the future.

Email Reference Evaluation Project

Code: COLUMC-02

Part cataloging part evaluation and part reporting this project will require one student to examine a time-based selection of emailed reference requests submitted by website users through the Library's (email) virtual reference service. Aggregating reorganizing and further describing the virtual reference requests data from a set period of time may illuminate areas of future focus and development in the Library's reference services. The data which consists of an initial emailed reference request from a library patron and one or more replies to that email between library staff and the patron will be pre-loaded into a database and any applicable metadata - such as dates times subject lines institutional affiliation - will have been automatically extracted. The student will be required to apply additional indexing terms to the reference transactions to indicate the type of request request topic(s) correct or completeness of answer (if determinable) and other elements that are otherwise difficult to automatically capture. At the end of the week the student will deliver either a written report or short presentation to Library reference staff of his or her findings even if preliminary. Findings may identify new subject guides or the need to update current ones or a list of common questions (and answers) in order to establish a Frequently Asked Questions page on the Library website among additional yet unidentified discoveries.