The purpose of this Bachelor thesis is to examine how user-friendly the OPAC of the Märsta public library is considered to be.Theoretical basis are HCI and Allwoods definition of usability. Issues are: Is the OPAC suited to its task? Is the OPAC user-friendly? How well does a user accept the OPAC? and What degree of competence is shown by users of the OPAC? The source material consists of six interviews in the form of .avi files. The method I have chosen is qualitative semi-structured interview form. The result is that, based on Carl Martin Allwood?s defini-tion and with exception for the using of help-resources, the usability of Märsta?s library OPAC can be considered less good..

The purpose of this Bachelor thesis is to examine how user-friendly the OPAC of the Märsta public library is considered to be.Theoretical basis are HCI and Allwoods definition of usability. Issues are: Is the OPAC suited to its task? Is the OPAC user-friendly? How well does a user accept the OPAC? and What degree of competence is shown by users of the OPAC? The source material consists of six interviews in the form of .avi files. The method I have chosen is qualitative semi-structured interview form. The result is that, based on Carl Martin Allwood?s defini-tion and with exception for the using of help-resources, the usability of Märsta?s library OPAC can be considered less good..

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to find out how information seeking habits and experiences of people in different generations affects their expectations on information retrieval systems like OPAC. Two OPACs are used, one web-OPAC and one mobile-OPAC. The following questions are asked: how can theories about information seeking behaviors explain why and in which way one seeks information? In which way does information seeking behaviors and habits affect the experience of OPAC? Which differences and/or similarities can be found between the web-OPAC and the mobile-OPAC? How does generational aspects affect experiences and preferences in an information seeking context? The theoretical framework of the thesis is information retrieval with several models about information-seeking/searching needs and behaviors. The empirical data contains interviews with nine people in different generations and protocols about two different OPACs.

This is a heuristic evaluation of Umeå university library?s Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). It makes use of four of Nielsen?s ten heuristics, flexibility and efficiency to use, match between the system and real world, visibility of system status, and aesthetic and minimalist design. The evaluation was done by having 3 evaluators inspect the interface individually, as per Nielsen?s (1990) recommendation of 3-5 evaluators.

The object of this study is to examine the effective functionality of an OPAC-system while a few participants interacted with the catalogue. I?ve used Carl Martin Allwood?s (1998) four designed usability factors to be able to estimate the effective functionality of the online catalogue. Theoretic basis is Human Computer Interaction together with Allwood?s four defined usability factors.

The scope of this master´s thesis is the issue of usability in relation to interface design,in particular the interface of a university library´s online public accessed catalogue, orOPAC. Since the OPAC can be seen as the library´s ?shop window? to the world, it isof great importance that the interface to the OPAC can be used by patrons witheffectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction.The master´s thesis is based on a qualitative study performed at Karolinska InstitutetsUniversity library, and contains both a usability evaluation and an interview study. Twointerfaces were evaluated: a standard web interface provided by the system supplier, andan interface developed in-house by Karolinska Institutet´s systems department. The twointerfaces are both connected to the same online library catalogue, thus making possiblea comparative study..

This master thesis is an attempt to study the interface in itself, where the human meets the machine and the problems that can arise. I study a particular interface, namely the OPAC of Libra III. In 1999 IFLA presented recommendations for what an OPAC shall contain, and in one part of my master thesis I compare Libra III with these recommendations from my opinion. In another part of my master thesis I make an investigation where I let five by me chosen persons answer some questions from me, both by doing and verbally. I draw the conclusion that Libra III follows most of the recommendations of IFLA in a sufficient way.

Already in the late 1970´s it became clear that the traditional catalogs in libraries were not suited for children, neither their interests nor their way expressing themselves were accounted for. The goal of this thesis is to investigate if and how children?s OPACs (Open public access catalogs) interface design is at present adapted to the presumed audience of children. My method consists of literature studies and an investigation on the graphical interfaces in OPACs for children, according to the five criteria formulated by childrens library consultant Lena Lundgren and IT-consultant Kia Gumbel. The aims are to find out: a) what requirements for children?s OPAC interfaces and their usability are defined in literature and b) what the actual (real) features of the children?s OPAC interfaces are.

The purpose of this Master's thesis is to examine whether a web-based library catalogue is to be considered user-friendly. We have examined this from a user-perspective by interviewing users of a web-based catalogue at a public library. In order to get a picture of the user-friendliness of a catalogue, the thesis is centred upon the following questions: How is a web-based catalogue used? What problems do the users experience? How is the catalogue perceived by its users? Since the producers of these catalogues now are taking into account the research upon human-computer interaction, we are also interested in finding out whether a web-based catalogue is more user-friendly than a more traditional OPAC. We do this by comparing the results of our examination with earlier studies of OPAC use.

The aim of this thesis is to study social tagging in an OPAC by looking at the tags of Ann Arbor District Library?s catalogue. In this thesis I analyse the possibilities of social tagging. The main questions to be answered are what is the distribution of tags in different categories, what are the differences between fiction and non-fiction and how do the social tags differ from the terms of the professional indexing practice. Studying 500 tags I find that subject matter was the most frequent category for tags assigned to fiction and non-fiction.

The aim of this thesis is to study the phenomenon of read/write OPAC by looking at how students at Pennsylvania University use PennTags in order to influence document descriptions in the library catalogue. The main questions to be answered are to what extent PennTags is being used in different subject areas and what users contribute to document descriptions through tagging in different subject areas. Studying the posts created by a sample of PennTags users from a quantitative approach I try to find out if there is reason to believe that the activity of users and users? possibility to make meaningful contributions are dependent of the subject matter being dealt with in documents described, as anticipated by the theory of pace layering. I find that user interest in influencing the library catalogue through PennTags appears to be low in general, with exception for in the subject areas of the main classes Language and literature and Social sciences in Library of Congress Classification.

Denna rapport handlar om införandet av en mobil katalogtjänst för ett svenskthögskolebibliotek, nämligen Bibliotek och lärande resurser (BLR) vid Högskolan i Borås.Syftet med denna rapport är att utreda hur införande av mobila katalogtjänster på etthögskolebibliotek kan ske, genom att studera vilka tjänster som är mest lämpliga att?mobilisera? för att ge en förbättring av bibliotekstjänster gentemot användarna. Dettaoperationaliseras genom tre forskningsfrågor:· Vilka tjänster levererar BLR:s nuvarande OPAC, särskilt avseendeinformationssökning?· Vilka av tjänster i BLR:s nuvarande OPAC är lämpliga att anpassa tillmobiltelefoner?· Hur kan de nuvarande tjänsterna anpassas till mobiltelefoner?Rapporten består i stort sett av tre delar som motsvarar forskningsfrågorna, den förstasom är en inventering av tjänsterna som BLR:s nuvarande OPAC levererar, den andrasom handlar om dagens mobiltelefoner särskilt avseende Internetanvändning och mobilawebbutveckling för att se vilka aktiviteter en mobiltelefon är lämplig att utföra, och densista delen som presenterar ett förslag för mobilanpassning, en prototyp av BLR:smobilkatalogtjänst.Resultatet av inventeringen visar att OPAC:en erbjuder olika sökmöjligheter, både förenkel sökning med korrekta bibliografiska uppgifter och för kognitivinformationssökning där användaren måste identifiera sitt informationsbehov och hittarätt sökord som beskriver informationsbehovet, och andra verktyg för att underlättasökning, särskilt den senaste sorten och hanteringen av användarens bibliotekskonto medmöjligheter att aktivt arbeta med dem.Mobiltelefonens egenskaper sammanfattas kort som liten skärm, omständlig inmatning,jämförelsevis långsam och kostsam datatrafik, mobilitet och push. Pga.

The aim of this thesis is to, through an empirical study ofthe social tags in the City of Stockholm libraries? OPACwith critical discourse analysis, examine the social tags?linguistic design, usability, and communicative potential? all in relation to the context. It is a linguistic study andit is important to take into account that the tags are extremelyshort texts ? single-word-texts. My starting-pointis that the tags are a form of utility texts.What I find is that a clear majority of the tags are nounsand function as index terms, but that there are differencescompared to authorized index terms.

Z39.50 is a standard protocol designed to create an interface between diverse computer databases for diverse information needs. Since it has to be adjustable it is also complex and demands a certain degree of expertise when being set. However, the aim of this paper is not to make a theoretical description but to examine certain conditions in practice. From the perspective of Swedish research libraries two principal hypotheses are examined: 1) the implementation of a given technology (Z39.50) is primarily influenced by social circumstances, and 2) the way in which the technology is implemented will bias the results of information retrieval. For this examination we need a framework of theories concerning the relationship between technological development and society, organisational theories and database theories.

Abstract: The aim of this study is to investigate the attitudes towards the labour movement?s strategies, goals and organisational issues in Swedish Miners? Union?s (Gruvindustriarbetareförbundet, hereafter Gruv) paper, Gruvarbetaren 1917-1925.The theoretical starting point is Engels? view on the class state. This perspective turns the question of socialism and the way to get there into an issue of working class power over the state. Another theoretical perspective is the partition of the labour movement into a trade-unionistic branch, seeing unions as financial organisations of interest, and a pro-state one, considering unions as political organisations.During the period investigated Gruvarbetaren was quite radical and advocated a firm class struggle strategy towards employers. Since these were considered unreliable, class struggle was seen as the only way to better the conditions for the working class.