Library Daydreams

“…what I've been daydreaming about is the ability to export a list of books I've checked out so that it could be put on my university website and automatically be updated--sort of like Bloglines maintains my blogroll.  A ‘currently reading’ list on my university website would help communicate my current research interests.  I guess I can do this via allconsuming.net (still need to check out that site, recommended by Mel earlier), but it would be neat to do it through my own library….

Also, (and this might actually be possible soon, if it isn't already possible) I would LOVE to be able to provide deep links to the library catalog, allowing those who see my "currently reading" list to learn more about each book.  I can do something similar through Amazon, of course, but I'd rather not advertise a for-profit business on my university website.  Plus, the deep links would be handy for course websites, too (e.g., for listing what I've put on reserve for a class).  (Yes, students can get that from the catalog, but it would be handier to deep link.) 

The librarian didn't seem terribly enthusiastic about these ideas.  Apparently, she doesn't blog, heh heh.  Seriously, her lack of enthusiasm stemmed from her abiding concern for patron privacy.

It's so sad that a library has to be more worried about protecting information than sharing information.  I am grateful that my library is attending to the issue, I just think it's sad….” [iBeth, via It’s All Good]

Help me out here… what’s a three-letter abbreviation for something that could help Beth display her list of checked out books?

I’m blanking out….

I just can’t think of it….

Waaaaiiiitttt a minute – could it be… RSS?!

Don’t even get me started on “the librarian didn’t seem terribly enthusiastic about these ideas” part, though. The privacy issue is exactly why ILS vendors should be providing the feeds.

Only Art Rhyno could compare library catalogs to Muddy Waters and make it work. I can’t even begin to paraphrase, but here’s my favorite quote:

“What if the current crop of ILS interfaces are the psychedelic experimentations that will lead to the best combinations of content and delivery? Whatever the case, this seems like an opportune time to explore the possibilities of using the web as a powerful linking engine for systems in addition to content.” [LibraryCog]

Click over and read the whole thing for yourself. Unfortunately, we’re left with the inevitable question of how to actually make this kind of thing happen, but at least Art is jumpstarting the conversation.

Last fall I encouraged libraries to treat local bloggers (local to their audience, be they students, residents, or employees) as they do other PR outlets. I’d been thinking about this for a while, but when I first said it out loud at the Internet Librarian conference and noted that everyone had local bloggers these days, there were skeptics.

You know how they always evaluate a movie’s potential by asking “how will it play in Peoria?” Well, check out Peoria Pundit and IlliniPundit.

Who else is getting in on the blogosphere? How about Os-blog, “the babbling of a 26 year old member of the DeKalb County (IL) Board?” The Utah House Republicans [via Phil Windley’s Technometria]? Even Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman at General Motors.

So who are your local bloggers, and how can you best get your library’s PR in front of them?

I don't actually use very many web sites right now that implement tagging (in fact, del.icio.us might be the only one), but I've decided that a lot of other sites should be employing folksonomies.

For example, I'm working on my presentation for Thursday's Tech Summit about social bookmark services (with a long tangent into folksonomies and then tagging and libraries), and I really wish Microsoft's Clip Art Gallery would let users tag the images because Microsoft does a pretty lousy job of it on its own.