Tales of a Librarian

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.

Technorati Tags: catalogues, opacs, public libraries, books, reviews, comments

I finally got round to registering with my local library last night, it was the first time that I had been in to it. It’s just a really small community library, with a little bit of everything: fiction, non-fiction, plenty of kids stuff, cds and the possibility of ordering in ps2 games (much to my partner’s delight!). They offer interlibrary loans and a free request service (i’m not entirely sure how the two differ), so that is also really useful as there are many books that I would like to get my hands on that are not on the physical shelves of the library.

It’s really great to have a library so close to where i live - it is literally about a five minute walk away - and it is open til 7pm through the week - so that means that i can visit it no probs after work. There is also a couple of larger libraries in the area, so no doubt i shall be visiting them at some point to find out what they are like too.

The library catalogue for the whole of the area is available to be searched online, and it has some really neat user functions which make it really handy to use. They allow a user to log in and make requests for items (as mentioned before) so that I can have any book in the area sent to my local library for collection. You can also make a book list (kind of like amazon’s wish list) so if you see books that interest you but you don’t have time to take them out just yet or if you just want to keep a note of them then you can do it this way. It also has lists of books that have won awards recently so if you are not sure of what you would like to read you can get some inspiration from these…

I can’t wait to get my PIN number in the post (neccessary to log in) so that I can start using the online service. I also took out some books when i registered last night (well, it would have been rude not too!!) - about gardening!!, so i shall be green fingered by the time that i return them (or at least that is the theory!).

It just got me to thinking about the whole range of ways in which the libraries could incorporate web 2.0 technologies into their websites to bring the library back into the community - people could use discussion forums centred around the library and so forth to discuss the latest books (like online book clubs I guess), or just to comment about certain books, rate them, make recommendations etc. Another good addition to a catalogue like this would be to provide some functions for those who do not know exactly what they would like to borrow - so providing some kind of electronic/online equivelant of browsing shelves by grouping books into categories - these could even be provided by a folksomy, so that users can be inspired about which books they read next. New books could also be given a promotion on the site, or a monthly/weekly collection on certain types of books could also encourage people to read beyond their boundaries - librarians could choose certain related books, with a theme such as ‘crime week’, or ’sci-fi’, or even a specific author, or non-fiction title, such as cookery, a specific country, etc. This might help circulate older, existing stock too.

I haven’t found out yet if there are any book clubs in the area - but again this is something that i think that i would find quite interesting, so long as i felt that the books that they usually tended to read were the kind that i would enjoy… I will have to look into this.

So, overall, I am very impressed so far with the library service in my new locale and can’t wait to give it a thorough testing-out. I’ll keep you updated!

Technorati Tags: public library, catalogues, opac, library service

Two posts on ebooks from the same blog caught my attention today. One was pointing to another post which was discussing the need for library 2.0 to incorporate books into it methods as this is still one of the primary functions of the library. I’m sure that some of the things he mentions, such as user comments inside books, have been discussed and done before in public libraries (although i do forget the name of it). Anyhow, its still worth looking at and reminding ourselves that people still associate the library with books, and we must find ways of developing this primary usage of them to include new methods of service delivery and user experience.

The second post i have to admit made me giggle, it’s another pointer to a post which likens people’s scepticism and concern about incorporating hand held computing equipment (such as ebook readers) into education to resistance to other advances in technology such as paper, manufactured ink and ball point pens. I wonder what things that are thought crazy today will be totally normal and mundane in the future. Hmmm…

Technorati Tags: ebooks, library2.0, books, resistance, technology, advances

The Spoken Word Matters blog yesterday pointed to the University of Liverpool library webpages, which is advising students of the benefits of subscribing to rss feeds of table of contents of their favourite journals (see page). They also provide information on installing an rss reader and a list of journals that currently have rss feeds. This is very similar in to the JISC-funded TOCRoSS project that I discussed last week (see post), however, in this instance the library itself does not appear to have been involved in the development of the feeds, simply the sourcing of those which are available and the promotion of the benefits of these to students. This will no doubt become increasingly useful as more and more ejournals distribute their ToCs by RSS. Currently I have only found one ‘academic’ publication (i.e. those expensive peer-reviewed ones!!) to which I have access that allows RSS feeds (the Journal of Information Science) and a couple of other electronic-only publications such as Ariadne and D-Lib magazine. I’m sure, however, that eventually, organisations such as Emerald etc. will develop RSS feeds as part of their subscription service for all their publications (eventually!). In the meantime, I think that the way in which the University of Liverpool is utlising the facilities that are already on offer and promoting them to students in this way is a really effective (and cost-effective!) method of increasing the usability and accessibility of their electronic collection.

Technorati Tags: rss, cataloguing, catalogues, table of contents, library, opac

Hi there, just another quick post to point out that the University of Huddersfield Library catalogue, as well as being integrated with Amazon.co.uk through the use of greasemonkey userscripts, has also incorporated a ‘people who borrowed this, also borrowed….’ function into their library records a la Amazon. It doesn’t work for every record yet, but you can see it in action by following this permalink. You can also read a blog entry by Lorcan Dempsey on the subject. So many new cool things that can be incorportated into library opacs now, it’s all very exciting…

Walt Crawford has devoted an entire issue of his self-written journal Cites & Insights to offering an overview (for overview, read devilish critique) of the Library 2.0 phenomenon. It really is brilliant reading. Very entertaining. Nothing beats a healthy dose of scholarly criticism!