To me it sounds like what we are really talking about is a federated
search interface, not a catalog at all!
Bill Drew
drewwe_at_morrisville.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Laura Smart
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 3:26 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] What library patrons really want. Was: RE:
[NGC4LIB] Death by enhancement: was WorldCat Local
Thanks Karen for bringing that up. I was just about to do it myself,
in fact I added "user" to http://futurelib.pbwiki.com/People just this
morning because the absence of our customers was glaring. If we don't
serve the people we purport to serve, we shall find our funding drying
up as other entities move to fill in the gap. The difficulty is that
our users are not all the same, nor are their contexts of use -- the
"all things to all people" problem. What works for the academic
researcher isn't going to be the catalog that works for the 3rd grader
with a science project. Perhaps its time to think not of the next-gen
catalog but next gen catalog_s_ .
Received on Fri Apr 27 2007 - 13:53:18 EDT