Carolyn MCDONALD wrote:
> Or do we forget trying to compete, and jump on board? I've just been
> told by senior management that Google offers our users much more
> functionality that our library catalogue, so we need to offer our
> "stuff" via Google - not true, but obviously a serious statement about
> our OPAC.
"Not true"? Is it really "not true" that we should offer our "stuff" via
Google? (or do you mean it's not true that we should ONLY offer it via
Google? or not true that Google offers more functionality? or is it the
inference you find faulty?)
I think that exposing your library catalogue via Google is a worthy
challenge, and not only because Google has wide acceptance amongst
users, but because the challenge of interoperating smoothly and as
richly as possible with Google imposes some useful disciplines on the NG
catalogue which will pay off in other areas. A catalogue from which
Google is able to harvest rich metadata, I'd argue, must sport an
OAI-PMH interface. If more catalogues had such an interface, just to
connect to Google, it would be a big step forward for other, internal,
purposes too.
If a user goes into your library, searches for a book using Google, and
gets a hit which directs them to your library catalogue, that, to me, is
a big win. The user may just think "oh my dog! the library has a
catalogue of its own! who knew?"
Con
--
Conal Tuohy
Senior Programmer
+64-4-463-6844
+64-21-237-2498
conal_at_nzetc.org
New Zealand Electronic Text Centre
www.nzetc.org
Received on Thu Jun 29 2006 - 19:39:24 EDT