So what's the difference, Bill?
The 'federated search interface' has got to be searching something of
course. It can't be turtles all the way down.
Are you saying that you want a completely different word for something
the user searches involving printed books and journals, and something
the user searches that also involves other things? I don't get it. I
don't care what we call it, but it's all the same thing. [Actually I'd
prefer to call it a catalog, partially in deference to the tradition of
cataloging and catalogs, but, hey, the name isn't the important thing].
Jonathan
Drew, Bill wrote:
> 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_ .
>
>
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
Received on Fri Apr 27 2007 - 14:12:55 EDT