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How Do They Do That?

February 15, 2007 - 10:37pm — GregS*

I had clicked on the library link for the Heidi Bullard post for the Covedale Public Library. I liked their design and I'm planning on using their rss feeds as an example of how to work towards my own library's integration of feeds. What I was surprised by was how their new stuff feeds have a "Place A Hold" option. If I were doing it I would just link to the item in the book catalog but their way seems like bringing the catalog functions into your website. Much cooler.

Comments

February 16, 2007 - 12:00am — hollysue

Very cool

I would also love to know how they're doing that. They're using the same ILS/OPAC as my library, and I haven't seen a way to do that here.

I love this stuff.

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February 16, 2007 - 12:30am — Daniel

Re:Very cool

I'm with Holly Sue. Very cool. Thanks for finding this. Be sure to journal if you find out how.

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February 16, 2007 - 4:57pm — shoe

My Guess

My guess is that they're using "Rooms", a Sirsi-Dynix CMS solution. You can see some demos here as well as get some more information. We had it shown to us when Horizon/Sirsi-Dynix came in to sell us on the new Horizon.

Essentially, IIRC, the rss feed is integrated into the catalog, and a lot of the content is chosen by Sirsi Dynix (You can manually do stuff, too). But I think, in this case, it is all automated by Sirsi... from the front page to the catalog back end.

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February 19, 2007 - 4:18pm — GregS*

Re:My Guess

Well if its Sirsi then I'm a little less impressed but overall its still a good tool. I would rather the librarians were able to pick and choose what books they wanted to highlight. We have Horizon now so if the option ever becomes available I don't see us turning it down.

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February 19, 2007 - 6:01pm — shoe

Re:My Guess

They gave us the hard sell with the Horizon 8 package. It's an extra module though, and my guess is it's probably rather expensive. You can customize what you want displayed, but I didn't gather that that was really something Sirsi-Dynix was touting too much.

I thought the CMS product itself was kind of meh. I mean, it has its applications, but...well... you know me. :)

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