Too Many Channels: Making Sense out of Portals and Personalization

Academic clientele expect their library to select the best and organize it effectively for their personal consumption. Most libraries currently organize content according to organizational, service, or subject categories. For many faculty, staff, and students at large institutions with a wealth of licensed and free Internet content, this translates into a glut of information. Some answers to a broad hierarchical approach are customization through a MyLibrary ,feature, a role-based vertical view, and a powerful search engine all built on a rich resource database. This article will discuss customization and personalization issues for libraries in light of broader university and commercial developments, and the imperative to integrate content into the workflow of users at the point of need. ********** Faculty, staff, and students want personal recommendation, guidance, and services to address the problem of "too much stuff." A Web portal or gateway is now the standard interface to aggregate a library's resources and services through a single access and management point for these users. Portals are generally classified into three categories based on two components: diversity of content and community. Corporate portals have broad, diverse content and are targeted to a narrow community. Commercial portals, often called channels, offer narrow content for diverse communities. Publishing portals are for large, diverse communities and often contain little content customization. The information gateways of most academic libraries resemble primarily publishing portals aggregating external resources. More frequently, channels are being built around specific communities within the library's population (e.g., neurosciences) or roles (e.g., health care providers). Libraries--like corporate portals--use their portals as business platforms for provision of individual services such as circulation renewals, distribution of digital courses reserves, and document delivery targeted at individuals. Channeling information is key. This article will address the need for a library to navigate an integrated path through university portals, commercial competitors, and ubiquitous wireless access to ensure it does not become lost in the ocean of digital information. Customization, personalization, vertical integration, and sophisticated searching are approaches libraries are using to tame the portal glut. One key to such developments is a database of content in sufficient granularity that uses a middleware integrator to merge resources, services, and applications for faculty, staff, students, and extended library clientele. Used effectively, a library can describe content once and have it display on demand within the general library portal and be selected by individuals for a custom page. It can be indexed and searched in ways that allow more or less granularity depending on the target audience. Further, it can be one of many databases to search and select content for a particular user within a tiered MyUniversity or MyWeb personal site. The database will also allow content and services to be embedded in a user's workflow at the point of need, such as a clinical digital library within an electronic medical record for health care providers. Other middleware software will be necessary to create a direct interactive experience for users that moves libraries from customization to personalization. The "My" Trend The MyLibrary option appearing on many library portals is part of a larger trend toward customization or personalization. Consumers are being trained to expect that the world will be focused on their needs, wants, and desires (i.e., have it your way). This expectation translates into MyThis and MyThat on the Web. According to Richard Oliver, students and employees of the Millennial Generation will be distinguished by their determination not to be lumped into a group when it comes to what they consume and how they work. …