I'll echo what Maurice said about a 'cheaper alternative to Amazon". The
devil is in the details, however. Eric originally says "The system would
then update a local database and /get somebod/y [emphasis mine] to
actually send the item to the user. "Send it to me!" ."
Nice idea, but just who would that person be? And for libraries,
especially smaller libraries, how are the labor and shipping costs
recovered, or at least absorbed? Amazon does it by charging and dealing
in economies of scale - presumably the nice public library isn't going
to do that - or do they adopt differential charges for different
economic groups? Have fun managing the public relations on that. I
construe this simply as money making the world more convenient for those
who have it. On our far-flung campus here at NCSU, we do NOT charge for
sending books to various branches around campus that serve as pick-up
points, but do charge for the convenience of having print articles PDFd
and then emailed to researchers (not to make a profit, but to recoup the
labor costs of doing so). We do NOT deliver books to offices.
A few weeks ago I replied to Peter Brantley's blog when he discussed his
frustration with the cost of ordering a book from Powell's
<http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/shimenawa.php/2007/04/02/the_58_paperback>.
Someone else pointed out to him that his library at Berkeley had a copy,
but he said he didn't want to spend the time to pick it up. I challenged
him about not wanting to spend either time or money and asked how much
was he willing to pay to have it delivered to his office and he said
~$5. Someone else posted that in fact Berkeley does deliver and charges
exactly that, $5. But would students be willing to pay money for each
delivery? Would all faculty? And just what is an appropriate cost? How
many staff are required to handle this type of processing? All messy
questions.
But Eric's tool does raise an interesting question as to the distinction
between discovery and access. The former is mostly what seems to be
discussed here. From an economic perspective, however, the discovery
part is ultimately the more trivial part since for catalogs it is free,
so far (no advertising). The real work starts when considering how to
deliver physical goods while minimizing/recouping costs and making the
delivery routes efficient. I guess I think of discovery as (partially) a
technological problem and access as an economic one.
Scott Warren
Maurice York wrote:
> Hi Ted,
> I'm not entirely sure that I want to step in and play devil's advocate
> on this one, but it's Friday, so I'll suspend my better judgment for
> the sake of some intellectual sparring.
>
> Why would this be a sad future for libraries? In fact, this is where
> OCLC is putting their stake in the ground on the future of resource
> delivery: that users may actually appreciate an environment that shows
> them all the options they have available for getting their hands on a
> given item (Amazon, local bookstore, local library, etc) and shows
> them how long each takes and how much it costs. If I know I can get
> something for $20 in three days delivered to my door versus getting it
> immediately and free through a trip to the library (or better yet,
> have the library send it to me...hence, OCLC's resource *delivery*
> scheme), that's a choice I will be thankful to my library to have made
> available to me.
>
> "A cheaper alternative to Amazon.com..." Or otherwise put, A public
> good that provides democratic access to knowledge and makes
> information broadly available at less cost to the public (or to
> scholars, or what have you). Sounds strikingly similar to one of the
> foundational principles of libraries...
>
> -Maurice
>
> On 5/11/07, Ted P Gemberling <tgemberl_at_uab.edu> wrote:
>> Eric,
>> I hope this is not the Next Generation catalog. For one thing, it would
>> do you no good if you needed to read something that doesn't have an
>> ISBN. Believe it or not, people do sometimes need to read things that
>> predate the ISBN. Especially in certain fields of inquiry.
>>
>> I suppose you could say this exemplifies simplicity. There's only one
>> thing someone needs to know: the ISBN for something. The system will
>> take care of the rest. But ISBN's have no relation to the subject
>> content or even, as far as I know, the author. So this proposal would
>> make your local library no more than a cheaper alternative to Amazon.com
>> or Barnes and Nobles. After you find something you like in those places,
>> if you can't pay for it, you see if your library has it for free. It
>> will be real sad if that's the future of libraries.
>> --Ted Gemberling
>> PS I did just try the "find similar items" feature. And that does enable
>> you to find things with similar subjects. But don't you think now and
>> then someone might want to see what those subjects are? Because if you
>> know what they are, you have a possibility of determining how they
>> relate to others.
>>
>> Not an official statement of the UAB Lister Hill Library
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
>> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Eric Lease Morgan
>> Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 1:49 PM
>> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
>> Subject: [NGC4LIB] send it to me
>>
>> I think the "next generation" library catalog is not really a
>> "catalog" at all, but more like a tool or a foundation for providing
>> various types of services, and as an example I wrote a program I call
>> Send It To Me:
>>
>> http://mylibrary.library.nd.edu/send/
>>
>> Given an ISBN number the program will try to find the item in our
>> local catalog and prompt the user for their University ID if it is
>> found. The system would then update a local database and get somebody
>> to actually send the item to the user. "Send it to me!"
>>
>> If the item is not found, then it uses xisbn and thingisbn to
>> generate similar ISBN numbers and search for those locally. Again, if
>> found, it prompts the user for their ID and sets up a delivery
>> mechanism.
>>
>> If all is lost, then the system locates the item in the Library of
>> Congress, and offers the user four choices: 1) ILL, 2) library
>> purchase, 3) user purchase, 4) find similar items and borrow them
>> instead.
>>
>> The whole thing is just a prototype; it demonstrates how libraries
>> could make things easier for students, instructors, and researchers
>> when it comes to acquiring known items from library catalogs.
>>
>> --
>> Eric Lease Morgan
>> University Libraries of Notre Dame
>>
>
>
> --
> ************************************
> Maurice York
> Associate Head, Information Technology
> NCSU Libraries
> North Carolina State University
> Raleigh, NC 27695
>
> maurice_york_at_ncsu.edu
> Phone: 919-515-3518
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Scott Warren, M.A. LIS
Assistant Head
Textiles Library and Engineering Services
North Carolina State University Libraries
Box 8301
Raleigh, NC 27695-8301
919-515-6602 (phone)
919-515-3926 (fax)
scott_warren_at_ncsu.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Received on Mon May 14 2007 - 15:25:16 EDT