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Original does not mean starting from scratch
Although original cataloging is considered distinct from copy cataloging on a conceptual level and as a workflow, catalogers search for existing works or related content even with original cataloging. The notion that original cataloging starts in a vacuum has not held up in the interviews and usability testing.
Keyboarding vs. GUI
Command Line Interface/CLI or keyboarding solutions should be created for a production editor. A reason for pursuing a keyboarding interface include the prevalence of carpal tunnel syndrome. Discussions also seem to indicate keyboarding solutions enable faster data entry than mouse clicks.
Suggestions for reducing typing and reusing information
Highlighting commonly used values in dropdowns, preventing users from having to scroll through long lists (such as for languages).
Default values for certain contexts, such as default values for a particular collection being cataloged where the values are likely to remain the same for multiple properties or fields for many items in the collection.
Templates/macros for specifying which fields are used most often for particular types of content or to serve as a starting point for cataloging
Lookups
Usability testing revealed the need to modify interactions with lookups and highlighted the need for results to be returned more quickly for search results.
We began preliminary review of what context to retrieve for particular lookups. In general, catalogers appreciated the additional context, but we still need to design and evaluate how to provide context for different vocabularies (as each vocabulary will have different requirements for providing information). We have a preliminary set of contextual components with which we can begin this process.
Cataloger feedback and results from usability tests showed how the relevance rankings of the results needed to be modified to better suit their expectations. For example, catalogers provided feedback that Genre Form lookups should rely on an exact match with the search query. The search algorithm that adds results that match some of the query terms was not deemed appropriate for the expected search behavior for this vocabulary.
Getting to the authority records/authorized information from the search results is still important.
Editing vs display
Catalogers had feedback regarding Vitro’s default design which shows information on the entity page (e.g. Work) and allows users to add a property at a time by taking the user to a separate page where they can enter information for that property. In discussions, catalogers identified how they wished to see all the information they had entered (and only that information) in a way where they could quickly scan and confirm what they had entered.
The ability to enter multiple values for a property on the same screen (without navigating to a different screen every time) was suggested as useful. For instance, on the initial work/instance/item creation page, the user can enter just one activity/role and just one subject heading. The desired behavior is to be able to add multiple activities/roles (e.g. authors or performers) on the same page and multiple subject headings on the same page.
Vitro’s entity and property-based display of information and related editing was not always easy to understand. For example, when clicking on the edit button, from questions and cataloger feedback, it became clear that it wasn’t always obvious whether the interface was allowing them to edit the relationship between the subject and the displayed object or editing the object itself.
One suggestion was to reduce the empty screen space on the Vitro display to enable more information to be displayed on a single screen.
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