MARINet Increased Patron
Requests by 20% by Enhancing
its Online Experiences

MARINet was formed to empower Marin County libraries to expand their services and deliver more to patrons by pooling together and sharing resources. A card from any of MARINet’s libraries is valid across all member libraries. Today, MARINet uses BiblioCore and BiblioApps to serve an online experience that makes it easier for patrons to find what they’re looking for and borrow from a variety of formats and mediums. After subscribing to BiblioCommons, MARINet increased patron requests by 20%.

“You've made our site 'sticky' in web parlance. People get into the site, they stay and play, and find things. The stat that really surprised us was that the month we implemented BiblioCommons, which was around August 2016, our patron-placed requests went up 20% -- and never gone back. It made an immediate, measurable impact. People were noodling around more in the catalog a lot more and were finding more stuff.”

Dan McMahon, Systems Administrator

Objectives

For MARINet, elevating the user experience (UX) of both the catalog and mobile app was critical. Before subscribing to BiblioCommons, the UX prevented MARINet users from easily finding books and resources. MARINet also wanted patrons to browse across different formats.

A great online experience wasn’t just a ‘nice to have.’ Rather, if MARINet didn’t improve or make a change to the catalog’s discovery layer, it was at risk of losing patrons. Moreover, MARINet had to make improvements across both its website and app experience. Many of its patrons relied on mobile as their primary interaction point with the library, so a consistent experience was critical.

MARINet understood this early on, as far back as 2009, in fact! What they did was adopt solutions for online cataloging. However, despite being ahead of the curve in understanding what they needed, MARINet couldn’t find a good fit in the market, especially for use in public libraries. 

“We picked up our first discovery catalog in about 2009. In 2015-2016, we went live with BiblioCommons. BiblioCommons was very clear about the way they were going to focus the search for things. It's basically a product designed for public libraries. That's unusual! Almost every other product that we're offered by vendors is something designed for the academic market.”

Dan McMahon, Systems Administrator

One problem MARINet kept seeing was the lack of solutions that delivered on the user’s search intent. So, for example, if a user searched for movies, they wanted to see DVD or Blu-Ray options, not books on how to make movies or an analysis of movies. Yet, poor search experiences buried MARINet’s great material, thus stopping patrons from benefitting from their library. That’s when MARINet turned to BiblioCommons for user-focused solutions.

Solutions

When MARINet subscribed to BiblioCommons, it looked for the following qualities: a strong focus on friendly UX; comprehensive, on-demand support; and commitment to continuously improve the website and the app. 

“The reason why we chose BiblioCore and BiblioApps was primarily the UX and the design. It just seemed easy and intuitive. We also liked the company and everyone we met [there]. If we had concerns or had questions, we could get somebody on the phone and get support.”

Jessica Trenary, Systems Librarian

MARINet used the BiblioCore discovery layer to deliver a catalog experience that patrons found responsive and functional. It wanted users to find materials more efficiently and browse across different formats. This way, patrons see the right search results and have options to choose from in case, for example, a certain format isn’t available.

In other words, the MARINet catalog empowers patrons to decide; do they want to wait to borrow the physical book and pick it up from the library, or do they want to get the digital copy via OverDrive? With BiblioCore, MARINet’s catalog now gives users all the information they need to make the choice that works for them. Not only that, but the ability to easily see a choice sets patrons up to try new things for the first time, like ebooks. Beyond helping patrons ‘discover,’ the newly enhanced online experience also helps MARINet’s libraries deepen their bonds with their patrons.

With BiblioApps, MARINet’s goal was to bring this same delightful digital experience to mobile and, in turn, reach even more people in Marin County. Given that mobile was the main point of interaction for many patrons, delivering an experience at par with the website was critical.

Of course, finding the right solutions is just half the mission. Smooth implementation is also just as important, if not more so—but that won’t happen without internal buy-in. Being a consortium, MARINet was working with multiple libraries, each with varying levels of resources.

“The project plan and the implementation that BiblioCommons provides really makes it clear and easy to communicate with your library members on how the change is going to go and what needs to take place at each step… Implementation seems really scary. It’s really hard to get all of your member libraries to agree to anything. So, something as big as a change in your discovery layer is really daunting. But I found the process to be really smooth and really easy… The implementation team was great, and it went pretty quick.”

Jessica Trenary, Systems Librarian

Changing over to BiblioCore and BiblioApps took less than six months, and for MARINet, getting buy-in across its nine member libraries was critical to success. With each of the libraries being enthusiastic about the change, MARINet successfully got the online experience it felt its patrons deserved— and patrons agreed by providing lots of positive feedback.

Results

The month MARINet launched BiblioCommons, its patron-placed requests grew by 20%—and it hasn’t declined ever since. There was an immediate and measurable impact.

The significant change after implementing BiblioCore was that patrons weren’t just finding what they wanted, but they were interacting with their library website for longer periods and more frequently. That increased engagement led to greater discovery and, in turn, higher user satisfaction. In addition, even items that had exposure on the old cataloging system were getting more requests through BiblioCore. It was as if the tide was elevating for the entire collection, not just the items that were previously less discoverable or visible in the old cataloging system.

“You [BiblioCommons] took the best design practices from commercial sites and brought them to the library interface. That’s precisely what public libraries need… The customer account features are so standard in the sense of the internet, the way everybody expects things to work. A BiblioCommons library is a happier public library because patrons are happier.”

Dan McMahon, Systems Administrator

“I remember one of the reasons why we decided to switch to BiblioCommons—after seeing a couple of different discovery layers—was that the “hold” button was giant and green. That was such an obvious design.”

Jessica Trenary, Systems Librarian

Future

By virtue of being a consortium, MARINet can draw on each library’s collective experiences and feedback to deliver benefits for all. It’s the same idea with BiblioCommons, but at a much grander scale as it involves public libraries across North America. That’s why MARINet is confident that it will keep delivering an online experience that matches and exceeds what its patrons expect today and well into the future.

There’s one codebase for every library using BiblioCommons’ suite of products. If BiblioCommons develops a feature improvement for one public library elsewhere, MARINet will also benefit from that same improvement. Likewise, MARINet benefits from the feedback and input of a large user base spanning across every library subscribed to BiblioCommons. So, user feedback from Boston and Chicago, for example, will drive improvements for MARINet. Overall, MARINet’s online user experience will never fall behind its peers from across North America.