Hi, I'm the creator of Zoomii. A pair of helpful people referred me to this
thread. It's been a very interesting discussion to read.
I suppose my main response to Tim Spalding and others would be that covers
*are* good for discovery, because they're designed to communicate something
about the book, not just grab random attention. (like Audrey Laplante
described for music) Their easy recognition, which Tim pointed out, also
aids discovery, because when you see a book you recognize and love on the
shelf, you tend to look at the ones around it to, which are most often
similar in subject or author.
Library patrons don't spend all their time searching at a terminal and then
going to the specific books, or exploring the area near a found book, or
browsing a favorite section, or just browsing randomly. In fact, I'd guess
most patrons do all these things.
That means they're voting with their feet. The books on shelves satisfy a
need the conventional electronic catalogs do not, and vice versa.
I don't think remote access changes that.
(Not to say that something like Zoomii satisfies as much as a real
bookshelf; it doesn't... yet. :)
Received on Fri Jun 27 2008 - 15:33:09 EDT