On June 8, 2006, Bernie Sloan wrote:
>Off and on over the years I've found myself thinking the following
about
>public access library systems development: "what would happen if you
put
>software designers/developers and library users in a room together and
>locked the doors so that no librarians could get in?"
>I'm usually half-joking when I say this, but I was wondering if anyone
>has ever tried or considered such an experiment with minimal librarian
>participation in the design and development of library systems meant
for
>public use?
Having been out of the office on Friday, someone else may have responded
to this already in a way similar to mine. So, excuse the anticipated
duplication...
That said, if a "library" is a searchable repository of items,
amazon.com has probably done the best job of creating a librarian-free
search-and-retrieve system. Their search tools are so good that they
even provide snippets of content to assist "readers" in making
selections.
Amazon's user interface and multi-format bibliographic databases are
essential tools for me when I assist a patron. My search might only be
to determine that a book exists or a future publication date, but it is
as broad in scope as my local ILS is limited to our own collection.
WorldCat and amazon.com do a remarkably similar job of locating
materials. WorldCat provides richer metadata in MARC format (good for
us), while amazon.com seems to function well with publisher-provided
data (good for patron). Both systems provide a customer/patron access
to desired materials, but only amazon.com provides the same interface
anywhere in the world.
An experienced patron can use his or her library's ILS to locate and
request materials. A really experienced patron can perform the same
function in a neighboring agency's library with a different ILS.
Anybody with a keyboard and a web browser can use amazon.com. And so,
the librarians have already been locked out of the best search engine.
And patrons have their books delivered to their homes.
As we look to the next generation catalog and library, we should be
looking at material delivery methods as well.
John Marquette
Received on Mon Jun 12 2006 - 12:41:51 EDT