[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Feature inquiry

[Deanna Frazee]

I love LibraryThing, but it's value is as a personal tool.  In my mind,
a library's catalog is a tool for the masses, and therefore should not
work the same way.  I can see no reason for the masses to provide their
own cataloging.  It is just a constant recreation of the wheel.
Instead, take an existing record and modify it for your own use, e.g.,
copy cataloging.

Maybe this is an area where FRBR can play a role.  One base record for
the masses, yet each takes it and puts in their own extras to create
something more personal.  Perhaps my thing is that if everyone does and
we end up with endless personal records, it all just becomes clutter.

Deanna Frazee
Killeen City Library System
(254) 501-8995
(254) 501-7704 (fax)
dfrazee at ci.killeen.tx.us
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org
[mailto:open-ils-
> general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Jason
Etheridge
> Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 4:48 PM
> To: Evergreen Discussion Group
> Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Feature inquiry
> 
> > Yes, the ability to tag should be there.  But make it a feature that
can
> be turned off by those of us who do not want it.
> 
> Part of the problem with the "wisdom of the masses" aspect of tagging
> is building incentive and getting a critical mass for a network
> effect.  Personal tagging has its own incentive, and maybe the
> predominantly privacy-conscious librarians will let us set the default
> to "Shared" for personal tagging in their libraries, but is it and
> will it be enough to kick off the process?  LibraryThing[1] hits the
> incentive nail on the head; the whole point there is to catalog your
> books.  But that's not the point of _current_ library catalogs (we
> need to change that--the library website could be a tool to help you
> organize your data rather than merely find data).
> 
> This potential lack of incentive and resulting sparseness of data is
> one reason why I'm very interested in the SOPAC[2], and more
> importantly, its Insurge component (Independent Social Repository).
> With Insurge you can share user-contributed data between catalogs and
> populations.  So if one library manages to hit upon an incentive for
> their population (for example, Oakville and Bibliocommon's Build the
> Ultimate Catalog contest[3], if it were not a silo), then everyone
> benefits.
> 
> Some ideas?
> 
> Get the third party open source catalogs working on Evergreen
> (VuFind[5], SOPAC, Blacklight[6], etc.).
> 
> Get commercial OPAC-related products working on Evergreen
> (LibraryThing for Libraries[7], AquaBrowser[8], Endeca[9], etc.).
> 
> Many folks have harped on the notion of a "dis-integrated" library
> system.  It's a good idea, and it's one reason why we built Evergreen
> with a service oriented architecture.  Freedom breeds innovation
> (actually, that's a bit of a fib--problems and constraints breed
> innovation, but you need the freedom to innovate, to well, innovate,
> so it's worth advocating freedom).
> 
> Give Evergreen a way to consume the bookbags and RSS feeds it
produces.
> 
> Try to engage the patron with little sidebar surveys and the like
> ("Hey, since you last signed in, you have returned these books: xxx,
> xxx, xxx.  What did you think of them?")
> 
> Participate in the Next Generation Catalog For Libraries (NGC4LIB[10])
> mailing list.
> 
> [1] - http://www.librarything.com/
> [2] - http://www.thesocialopac.net/
> [3] - http://opl.bibliocommons.com/info/contest
> [5] - http://www.vufind.org/
> [6] - http://lib.virginia.edu/digital/resndev/blacklight.html
> [7] - http://www.librarything.com/forlibraries/
> [8] - http://www.aquabrowser.com/
> [9] - http://www.endeca.com/
> [10] - http://dewey.library.nd.edu/mailing-lists/ngc4lib/
> 
> --
> Jason Etheridge
>  | VP, Community Support and Advocacy
>  | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Evergreen Experts
>  | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
>  | email:  jason at esilibrary.com
>  | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com