I’m totally snowed under writing grants and dealing with some medical stuff going on at home, but I just had to post about this. Someone forwarded to me Innovative’s June 2005 newsletter (PDF). See if you can spot why from the following list of just a few things they will be introducing in upcoming releases:

• A program registration module that uses the patron database to let your users register for events.
• Spell-check for searches in the catalog (let’s add auto suggest, too, eh?).
• “Patron materials rating,” which is an ugly way of saying user ratings and you can see how others are rating titles. You can also add a reading history module that lets users track what they’ve already read, all of which integrates with the ratings piece.
• WebBridge “smart” linking, which highlights resources you’ve designated for specific searches when the user runs that search.
• The ability to link to ebook and audio ebook vendors from the 856 field in AirPAC.
• Sympsoia, a digital repository module.
• RSS.

Yep, you read that right – RSS! So the good news is that they are currently beta testing RSS feeds with Yale University, and Innovative seems to understand what they need to offer in terms of feeds.

“Now, Innovative’s RSS (Really Simple Syndication) development will make possible new time-critical features for both anonymous and logged-in users of the online catalog. RSS is an XML format that allows organizations and individuals to feed news data directly into news readers or webpages as it is updated. The XML feed can be converted to HTML for use in a wide variety of contexts.

It is already possible to add these HTML portions with feed data into any library-customizable page in the Web OPAC. With Release 2006LE, available late this year, Innovative customers will have the ability to convert feeds to HTML without using third-party solutions. Also, the library will be able to generate its own feeds of new titles acquired by the library….

Innovative will use RSS to support one-to-many communication, but in Release 2006 there will also be one-to-one support. Patrons will be able to get RSS messages as part of their My Millennium suite of personalization features. Timely messages such as ‘Materials due tomorrow’ or ‘New item on hold shelf for you’ will let patrons know about their interactions with the library more quickly than ever before.”

I am thrilled to hear about all of this, but you also just read the bad news – 2006. That means my SWAN libraries really will lose a minimum of 924 hours of staff time this year after all. Still, they’re heading in the right direction and doing lots of cool stuff, so I tip my hat to III and say job well done!