>"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?)
Sorry for my lack of clarity - I meant that it is not true that Google
offers more functionality. My comment was more one of regret that our
own management don't know about the functionality available in our
catalogue, and concern about why that is.
>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.
I won't argue with that - and in fact the argument I am making in my
organisation is based on that assumption - that we must look at taking
our information into the user space, and at present, that is Google.
>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.
I couldn't agree more, which is why we have been quite excited (doesn't
take much to excite us) about the plugin for Firefox that we have been
able to use with Google Scholar that will place a link to our SFX server
at the end of the citation, taking our users directly to a list of the
places where they can get the document. And we are working on making
that available to our users and expanding that access. And the
developments with the National Library of Australia so that a search in
Google Scholar for a book title will retrieve a link to the NBD at
Libraries Australia, which lists our holdings as well as most other
holdings in all major libraries in Australia. And Picture Australia
(again from the National Library of Australia
http://www.pictureaustralia.org/) which is linking to certain content
from Flickr which is relevant to the Australian heritage and making it
available through Picture Australia.
http://www.pictureaustralia.org/Flickr.html
But this is in the here and now, and what's visible and available to us
now in the most isolated capital city in the world - what comes next?
This seems to be heading into a world of connectivity, where the local
catalogue is nothing but a source to be harvested for where the real
searching happens.
Carolyn
Received on Thu Jun 29 2006 - 20:57:06 EDT