More MeeboMe Ideas

Wow - there have been lots of comments on the MeeboMe widget. Great! Some other libraries are trying it out - check the comments on my original post and on Jenny Levine’s post titled Mashing on the Library, Part I to find them. Others have been emailing me, asking for details.
Now, let’s take this one [...]

IL2007, Day 3: Building Web 2.0 Native Library Services

Casey Bisson (met him for the first time - nice guy!)
“Libraries are much larger than our books and our OPACs”
Catalog challenges:

usability
findability
remindability

We use Linux daily - it’s the dominant platform of most social web apps
IBM saves over $900,000,000 annually because of LInux
Scriblio.net (used to be his WPOPAC) - very cool. He’s making this easily available to [...]

Thoughts on Everything is Miscellaneous, Part 1

I just finished reading David Weinberger’s book, Everything is Miscellaneous (thanks, Brad!). It’s a great read - one that I highly recommend to everyone who reads my blog. You might not agree with everything in the book, but I guarantee the book will make you think.
First things first - Weinberger MUST know some librarians! Throughout [...]

OZSDUG Meeting and Demo of Rome

The Gordian Knot blog recently mentioned the OZSDUG (OZarks SirsiDynix Users Group) meeting that took place on June 5th… I attended the meeting - here are my notes:
First up, a SirsiDynix Sales Rep answered a list of pre-prepared questions:

Question - Can we trust SirsiDynix promises? Answer - “No.”
The company that bought Sirsi told them to [...]

Computers in Libraries 2007: Day 2: LibraryThing

Tim Spalding, LibraryThing
Showing LibraryThing - features, social aspects, etc
Showed a graphical timeline on what you’ve read (not yet released)
Regular people care about book data more than you would think
Claims his product is the only one that works with z39.50 and MARC
Showed a great example of tagging vs LoC subject headings. Used the book Neuromancer as [...]

Computers in Libraries 2007: Day 2 - Comments in the Catalog: Community Interaction

Glenn Peterson, Hennepin County Library
Case Study
Comments are:
mini reviews
any title in the catalog
a “blog for every book” - cool way to think about it!
Gave brief history about their comments project:
started taking book reviews by kids and teens
then they thought - hey, adults might like to do this (not too successful)
mentioned that they custom-created this - Sirsi [...]

Kansas Tri-Conference 2007: Day 2 - Libraries, Vendors, and the Future of Search

Andrew Pace
Showed a timeline of library automation (that started on 1936!)
Where are we?

the rfp has not evolved
the traditional ILS system is a legacy system
new innovation requires new technology

Discussed the current state of the ILS
what ILS catalogs do well:

inventory control
known item searching

what ILS catalogs don’t do well:

any search other than known item
anything other [...]

SirsiDynix is Building Rome

Update: Here’s a link to the official press release.
You might have seen some posts about Sirsi/Dynix here, here and here… well, they sent an email out to SirsiDynix customers - here’s the email (I’m assuming this will resemble the press release that’s supposed to be released later on today):

Dear valued SirsiDynix customer,

 

Later today, SirsiDynix will [...]

SirsiDynix is Building Rome

You might have seen some posts about Sirsi/Dynix here, here and here… well, they sent an email out to SirsiDynix customers - here’s the email (I’m assuming this will resemble the press release that’s supposed to be released later on today):

Dear valued SirsiDynix
customer,
 
Later today, SirsiDynix will make an
exciting announcement for both our company and the [...]

10 Easy Steps to a Horrible ILS

I just read this article, and thought some of the points made really compare to the ILS discussion going on right now. First, a little explanation - the point of the original article is to point out rather obvious ways to ruin an ecommerce site. But, some of those points translate nicely to our beloved [...]

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