LISNews: Librarian News

Aaron Schmidt has used quite a few library OPACs. He's also used and sought out the best of the open web. You’ve probably done the same and like him, you’ve probably been dismayed at the disparity between the two worlds. The open web can be fun and inspiring. Would you say the same of our OPACs? He's thought about what OPACs should be like in bits and pieces and decided to assemble them here.

A Problem
Besides all of the small, simple usability enhancements OPACs need (listed way below) a big concern about library websites and OPACs is the distracting transition between the two. You know the routine. Ubiquitous “Click here to search the catalog” links take users from one place to another and create a disjointed experience.

Aaron's Solution
One way to provide a seamless experience is to put some OPAC functions into the website, letting people accomplish OPAC tasks without having to leave the library website. In Aaron's dream OPAC this go-between is essentially an ecommerce shopping basket but called a backpack or bookshelf in this instance. Just like on amazon.com, when logged in, a patron’s library backpack appears on every library webpage, whether it be the homepage, a book list, or the results list of a search. Any item cover on the website can be dragged and dropped into users’ backpack/bookshelf.

Really Interesting Post from John MacColl over at HangingTogether on the price of innovation. He says libraries can sometimes feel as though they know the value of everything but the price of nothing and wonders what is the price of making some major (and scary) changes? In other words, a pricelist is required, and producing it will be complex and challenging, requiring political as well as economic skills.

As a community we know we cannot turn back from this task, but it can seem a huge and frightening one. This is a moment when we require leadership which encourages and supports us to stick with the dynamic of change – more easily faced collaboratively - and continue to reject the stock responses of both cynicism and timidity.

A young entrepreneur wants to turn the library world upside down by building a free online book catalog that anyone can update. Many academic librarians are wary of the project because it will allow non-librarians, who may be prone to errors, to catalog books. But some young librarians are rallying around the idea because it may make their collections more visible on the Web.
His catalog, dubbed Open Library, is set to go live in early March with records on 20 million books. The goal is to create a comprehensive Web page about any book ever published.
The article also discusses the potential friction between Open Library and WorldCat. Will the success of the former spell doom for the latter? How will librarians respond to the invitation to send records to one or the other, or both? Stay tuned.

That is the question...do library patrons want their fiction choices to be categorized by genre? Carol Petrowski, a reference librarian at the Onalaska Public Library (a part of the LaCrosse County Library) asks readers their preferences and points out that although all fiction is shelved alphabetically by author, "Genre labeling is only an additional tool to help you identify the type of material you might want."

Of course, on the other hand, "it is not necessary, it is not infallible and it may cause consternation or outrage to patrons who disagree with the genre assigned." Egad.