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What you have told us

Here you can search through numerous patron comments and the corresponding AADL replies. Search by the type of comment, in general by what the comment is regarding, or by a particular issue.

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Date Received: 2009-10-02
Type: complaint
Regarding: catalog/searching

Patron Comment: The new catalog is terrible. Too many results are given and nothing is categorized. Hard to find something if you’re not exactly sure what you’re looking for.

AADL Reply: This comment was submitted anonymously.


Date Received: 2009-09-29
Type: complaint
Regarding: catalog/searching

Patron Comment: Is there a place that the DVD ratings (i.e. PG, PG 13, R, etc) are listed on the aadl.org website? I am not seeing it on your new display pages for catalog items. It used to be displayed on your old site and as a parent and patron, I am really missing this! It is laborious to go to another website to check the ratings of movie available at the library. Why is it missing? Was it a conscious decision or an over sight? Either way, I would like to see it added back. They are important guidelines for our family's choices. Thank you,

AADL Reply: Hello, thanks for contacting us. This wasn't a design choice; it's more that this data is in a part of the record on the old system that we thought we would be able to read from easily, but it turned out to be trickier than expected. However, we're actively working on this issue now; if you take our usability study at http://usability.aadl.org you'll find some mockups of how the rating will be shown in there. Thanks for your patience, and please let us know if you have any other suggestions. -eli Eli Neiburger Associate Director for IT and Production Ann Arbor District Library


Date Received: 2009-09-23
Type: complaint
Regarding: catalog/searching

Patron Comment: I signed on to find some authors I like...it isnt immediately obvious how to do that....what good is a library website that you cant use to do a search? then I called the library for help..."oh you did that wrong" says she.... what about a simple prompt that said Books: "search by author", search by title...not all the somber brindle and grey useless choices... I hate to think how much we paid to have this useless streamlined website

AADL Reply: Hello, thanks for contacting us. I'm sorry you're having trouble with the new website, and I'm sorry you were told 'oh you did that wrong', as that's certainly not the customer service standard we aspire to. All you should need to do to search for books by an author is enter their last name; you can add first name if their last name is common, or choose author or books to refine your results. The site was developed internally, so no expensive vendor bills were involved. Please let me know a little more about the problem you're running into and we can find a way to make the site work better for you. Thanks again for your patience, and thanks for using the library! -eli Eli Neiburger Associate Director for IT and Production Ann Arbor District Library


Date Received: 2009-09-19
Type: complaint
Regarding: catalog/searching

Patron Comment: I am writing concerning a problem that I am finding quite frequently since you have upgraded your library website. When looking up an item, DVDs in this case, the picture of the item does not match the description and is for a different version than what is described. Example: "Richard III"; photo, shows Ian McKellan as the star, publ. date 2004 while the description is for a 1955 version starring Laurence Olivier. Example: "Othello"; photo shows Laurence Fisburne in a 2007 production, while the decription is for a 1965 version starring Laurence Olivier. Example: "Deception", the photo shows Hugh Jackman in a 2008 production; the description is for a 1946 production starring Bette Davis. It is very disheartening to request an item, wait to pick it up only to find that it is not the version you requested. This happened when I requested "Richard III." I don't know how many items are listed incorrectly in your catalogue, but previous to your website update I never experienced this problem with any items that I looked up. Thanks so much for looking into this.

AADL Reply: Hello, thanks for contacting us. We're very sorry that you received the wrong item as the result of a wrong cover. The new system is being more aggressive in trying to find covers for items, which brings both a lot of new covers and some wrong ones. However, we have a process for handling these items. I've corrected the ones I can at the moment, but please don't hesitate to send us any others of these you come across. We have staff working on cleanup as well. Thanks for your patience, and please let us know if you have any further questions or trouble. -eli Eli Neiburger Associate Director for IT and Production Ann Arbor District Library


Date Received: 2009-09-18
Type: complaint
Regarding: catalog/searching

Patron Comment: I really didn't want to list this under complaint, because I love my library!! However, under your new system, I am not able to go to New Fiction, New Non-Fiction, etc. and see covers (not that I would ever ever judge a book by its cover!); and, more importantly, I feel frustrated by not being able to access reviews and summaries of the new books under their listing. These show up under the Hot Books categories, but they are more important to me for the New Book listings. Is there any possibility this will change? Thank you.

AADL Reply: Hello, thanks for contacting us! I'm sorry that you're feeling frustrated. The issue here is that with the new site, items now show up in the new items lists right after they are ordered, instead of when they arrive. This means that for some of the items in the new items lists, there is not yet a cover or reviews or summaries yet available! However, in this case, looking at the current contents of the new fiction list, something else went wrong and it looks like the vendor that supplies the covers and the extended data like reviews and summaries was not reachable when those items were processed. So, we want to make this information available whenever we can, and we will find out what's wrong here. That said, because items are showing up on these lists months earlier than they were before, there's an increased chance that the cover and extended data won't be available for that item. Thanks very much for sending this in, and hopefully we should have this fixed next week. Thanks as well for your patience, and please let us know if you have any further questions or trouble. -eli Eli Neiburger Associate Director for IT and Production Ann Arbor District Library


Date Received: 2009-09-17
Type: complaint
Regarding: catalog/searching

Patron Comment: I don't know how many weeks it's been since you switched your search engine functionality, but it's still terrible. Try searching for the DVD "I Sell the Dead". Even if you arrange the results it in alphabetical order, there are so many pages of results, 20 at a time, it could take ten minutes to find it. Is there a way to display ALL results on one screen? Then at least I could use the browser's search function to establish whether it's there or not. How about allowing "quotes" around a title search so you can search for that exact title? That would be a big help for people who know what they want. Right now, an exact phrase match isn't even available in Advanced Search (is it?)

AADL Reply: Hello, thanks for contacting us. We're sorry you're still having trouble with the search. Quotes have worked exactly as you describe since the new catalog was launched; if you do a search for "I sell the dead" you will definitively see that we don't have this item: http://www.aadl.org/catalog/search/keyword/%22I%20sell%20the%20dead%22 As for more than 20 results per page, we have that on our list to add as a selectable setting, so watch for that soon. Thanks very much for your patience and for your feedback, and thanks for using the library. -eli Eli Neiburger Associate Director for IT and Production Ann Arbor District Library


Date Received: 2009-08-31
Type: complaint
Regarding: catalog/searching

Patron Comment: There seems to be something wrong with your website. Not only is the "search other librairies" tab gone, but it will only search your catalog by keyword not matter what you select. Is this a general problem or is it me? I would appreciate a reply. Thank you

AADL Reply: Hello, thanks for contacting us. We're sorry you're having trouble with our website upgrades. You should find a link to search other libraries at the bottom of every page of results, or immediately when your search gets no results. You can also find a link to mel on the 'Request ILL' button on the catalog page, where it always was. Your keyword search problem I have not heard of; can you tell me a little bit more about the trouble you're running into and what steps you take to encounter this problem? Also please let us know what web browser you are using and we can investigate further. Thanks for your patience, and please let us know if you have any further questions or trouble. -eli Eli Neiburger Associate Director for IT and Production Ann Arbor District Library


Date Received: 2009-08-24
Type: complaint
Regarding: catalog/searching

Patron Comment: Your new format for videos does not have a description of the story like the old format had. I see that some of the videos have a "summary" section but the majority of these do not. What happened to that information?

AADL Reply: Thanks for contacting us. The story synopsis and other information will return shortly, we're working on that this week. It's still in the database and we're just working out some display problems. Thanks for your patience, and please let us know if you have any further questions or trouble. Eli Neiburger Associate Director for IT and Production Ann Arbor District Library


Date Received: 2009-08-23
Type: complaint
Regarding: catalog/searching

Patron Comment: When I looked at the catalog, it seems too simple to me let me explain, there are no summaries so I can't tell what the book is about, or none that I can find though some changes are good in your website, some aren't you better ask people what they think of it and if you have, ask more

AADL Reply: Hello, thanks for contacting us. The reviews and summaries are back on the results list, but we are still working on bringing them back onto the item pages. We understand how important this content is to our patrons, and it will return as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience, and please let us know if you have any further questions or trouble. Eli Neiburger Associate Director for IT and Production Ann Arbor District Library


Date Received: 2009-08-21
Type: complaint
Regarding: catalog/searching

Patron Comment: It's me again. I wanted the audio version of Garrison Keillor's book LIFE AMONG THE LUTHERANS, so I put in the title, audiobooks, and search. I got nothing at all by Keillor. Then I tried Keillor, Garrison, author, and audiobooks. I got a couple things by Keillor, then a whole stretch of things by Danielle Steele. Now there's an interesting pair--Garrison and Danielle!! Good grief! How did SHE get in there? Help!

AADL Reply: Hello, we've recently made a change to the catalog that should improve this performance for you. Danielle Steele will no longer show up, and you don't need to be quite so specific; simply searching for keillor gives you a quick list of the 44 things in our collection that he's been involved with. Unfortunately, Life Among Lutherans is a fairly rare book and we don't have it; nor do any of the MelCat libraries. Thanks for your patience, and please let us know if you have any further questions or trouble. Eli Neiburger Associate Director for IT and Production Ann Arbor District Library