Hi again… I was catching up with my feeds in newsgator and i came across a really interesting one which pointed out a development in Hennepin County Library Catalogue. I thought this was really timely given my previous delight at my own new library catalogue, which allows me to do various things like create a booklist and request/renew items free of charge online.
But this one is so much better… It allows users of the catalogue to post their own comments about each book/item held in stock, and also somehow it can bring up comments from amazon.com for the user to view too, but in the same window, and without leaving the comments page of the item. Wow, this is really great. I have yet to try it out to see whether anyone can leave comments or whether it is restricted to people with a library card from that area. Have a look for yourself, and see what people are saying about your favourite book. Here is the page for the book that I am currently reading - Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman (tis excellent by the way - as usual). Note that there is also a related book list (which is a bit dubious), an outline of the main characters in the book, and also a ‘other books about…’ list which is also a bit dubious, i think it must be some attempt at classification, but it doesn’t really work in this instance.
If these functions could be improved then it would really help the library catalogue compete with the likes of amazon etc. and be a place where users would choose to look to find out information about their favourite/intended books, rather than simply a list of locations and status.
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