David,
After the yucks die down, you raise an interesting question: has any
library scrapped their OPAC (not the underlying ILS) in favor of something
like Amazon or Google, and used a combination of Amazon/Google API tools and
those of their ILS (if they exist) so that Amazon/Google is the public
catalog, and it points into the local catalog as additional content. It
turns the idea of a portal or single/federated search engine on its head.
Instead of making the public catalog the focus, and incorporating external
content in to it, why not make a working product the focus, and incorporate
the library's "external" content in to it - this case the ILS itself?
Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Walker" <dwalker_at_CSUSM.EDU>
To: <NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu>
Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 3:21 PM
Subject: [NGC4LIB] We're going about this all wrong
>A lot of bright and talented people have argued for years now that our
> OPACs need to be more like Google and Amazon.
>
> I think we need to do the exact opposite: Let us pool our resources and
> lobby Google and Amazon to make their systems more like the OPAC!
>
> Here is a demo of what I'm talking about:
>
> http://library2.csusm.edu/amazon/
>
>
> Just think how much better Amazon could be if they took this approach!
> Feel free to file this under "Bad or inappropriate uses of the Amazon
> Web Services API." ;-)
>
> --Dave
>
> =========================
> David Walker
> Web Development Librarian
> Library, Cal State San Marcos
> 760-750-4379
> http://public.csusm.edu/dwalker
> =========================
>
Received on Sat Jun 10 2006 - 16:38:44 EDT