Re: Next Generation Catalogs at NISO Workshop

Well said, Dave.  But what is the incentive for LMS vendors to do this?
Its not like LMS users are going to select, reject, scrap or replace
their LMS because of integration (or lack thereof) with their enterprise
library system - or am I wrong about this?

Which of the major ILS vendors - Innovatice, EndInfoSys, ExLibris or
SirsiDynix (am I missing anybody?) - have joint development, sales and
marketing effort for, say, Blackboard?

Mark Andrews

-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of David Walker
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 1:20 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Next Generation Catalogs at NISO Workshop

Perhaps I should wait until the slides are posted to chime in.  But,
hey, when did actually understanding someone's point ever keep me from
critiquing it? ;-)

>> So libraries do delivery more than they do discovery.

I guess I'm not totally willing to accept this conclusion.

These days a lot of attention gets paid to Google and Amazon and how
well they do discovery.  And a corresponding amount of attention gets
paid to eking out some sliver of visibility in those systems so we can
funnel users to the library for the final product.

But comparatively little attention gets paid to integrating library
systems and services into the one application that would benefit
academic libraries the most: learning management systems.

If we could seamlessly integrate our catalog and other systems into our
LMS, so that students could easily find, use, and with one-click access
or order research material both within and beyond our library; well, we
would see our systems and collections get used a lot.  A lot!

We have a role to play in providing discovery (as well as delivery) in
that space.  We're the only ones who can effectively do so.  And we
would be targeting our core users directly.  Some people are focusing on
this task already, but, from where I sit, there are more questions than
answers, and more of the profession diverting its attention elsewhere.

--Dave

------------
David Walker
http://public.csusm.edu/dwalker

-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries on behalf of
kcoyle_at_kcoyle.net
Sent: Thu 9/28/2006 9:54 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: [NGC4LIB] Next Generation Catalogs at NISO Workshop

I'm at a NISO workshop on Managing Electronic Collections in Denver, and
the opening salvo was Marshall Breeding espousing many of the ideas that
have also been expressed here. When his slides are available, I'll post
the
link. One very interesting meme was his statement that the library
catalog
is not a starting point, it is a destination. Users will start their
information discovery elsewhere, and what we need to do is funnel
(you'll
see the funnel in the slides) the user's query to the library for
delivery.
So libraries do delivery more than they do discovery. Well, this isn't
very
eloquent, so we need to get Marshall to write it up for a better
explanation.

kc

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