For the second time in five years, the UCLA Library has been
forced to take down its online catalog system and is planning to
switch to a new system by fall 2004.
The decision to replace ORION2 was made last year when Data
Research Associates, the company producing the software that
operates the online catalog system, was bought in 2001 by library
technology firm Sirsi Corporation.
Sirsi then decided to freeze development on ORION2, which
prompted the library to look for a replacement. The library is
currently in the last stage of getting feedback from students and
faculty on the change.
Many students said they would welcome improvements on the
system, particularly in search speed and accuracy.
Anne Myers, an English graduate student, said she uses ORION2
frequently to prepare for her dissertation and often has problems
with system inaccuracy.
“Sometimes I know that a book exists because I’ve
checked it out before, but when I typed in the search no results
came up,” she said.
Some students also said ORION2 is slow in producing search
results.
Marty Cohen, a political science doctoral student, said although
ORION2 works fine in terms of accuracy, its speed is a deterrent
when he is running between classes or trying to catch a bus.
“It gets to the point where I just try to find books on
the shelf myself,” he said.
However, some students said they realize that not all of their
book-searching problems are caused by the library system.
Sometimes a book is not on the shelf because students misplace
books or the books have just been returned, said Anne Stiles, an
English graduate student.
“ORION2 works just fine for me,” said Christine
Gjerde, a second-year biology student, who uses the catalog to find
books for her class research.
Students with concerns about the current ORION2 should give
feedback to the library in selecting its system, said Dorothy Kim,
Graduate Student Association vice president of internal
affairs.
ORION2 has been online since January 2000. Before that, the
30-year-old ORION system had to be taken offline in September 1999
because it was not Y2K compliant and could no longer handle
circulation and user account information.
During the three-month period after ORION went offline and
before ORION2 started, students were unable to see if the books
they searched for were available at the library.
“It was a huge hassle,” said Ben Marschke, a history
doctoral student.
He added that though Melvyl, the University of
California’s systemwide library system, was up, it did not
work as well because it had no information on the availability of
books.
This time the library will make sure that there is a fully
functioning catalog system available during the transition period,
said Terry Ryan, associate university librarian. But the library
needs broad input in order to make the best selection for the
users, Ryan said.
Students and faculty can give feedback to the library either by
test driving the systems being used on other campuses or by
attending vendor demonstrations on campus throughout February and
March.
“We want to make sure that users have a voice in the
system selection process,” said Emmy Goldknopf, GSA
representative to the ORION2 Functional Sponsor Group.
The group was appointed last year to work on incorporating
feedback and making sure that all users are able to access the test
drives and sign up for demonstrations.
Earlier this month the library sent out e-mails to faculty and
graduate students and posted notices on the MyUCLA Web site to
notify undergraduates of the feedback process.
Last year the library conducted an online survey to determine
what service features are most important to users. From the
results, three library systems currently used at other universities
emerged as possible replacements for ORION2.
A large number of responses to the survey came from graduate
students, who tend to use the library heavily in conducting
research for their dissertations and classes.
Students can test drive the
library system or sign up to attend vendor demonstrations
until March 10 at
http://www.library.ucla.edu/otng/030212.html.