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Stephens, Owen | 1 Jul 2008 04:38
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Library tech event in the UK - any interest?

I'm thinking that we could do with having an event in the UK that is about bringing together interested
people and doing interesting stuff with libraries and technology.

The kind of thing I'm thinking of is along the lines of the recent 'Mashed Museums' event which Mike Ellis
blogged about at http://electronicmuseum.org.uk/2008/06/27/mashed-museum-2008/

I'm also inspired by the annual 'Hackfest' that happens in conjunction with the 'Access' conference in
Canada, and the various Barcamp and Unconference events that spring up quite regularly now.

If this sounds interesting, and you would be interested in coming along if I get something going, why not
leave a comment on my blog post about it:
http://www.meanboyfriend.com/overdue_ideas/2008/07/mashed-libraries-would-you-be-interested.html

Thanks,

Owen

Owen Stephens
Assistant Director: eStrategy and Information Resources
Imperial College London
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Karen Coyle | 1 Jul 2008 17:10

Re: Zoomi and your library OPAC

Selden Deemer wrote:
> For these materials, one seems limited to
> scanning title pages as substitutes for cover art, which is
> what Google Books is doing.
I really feel there is a need to view title pages for academic 
materials, although I don't see it as a substitute for cover art but as 
yet another piece of information. A good part of the library cataloging 
rules is about creating a surrogate for the title page -- so if the 
title page is so darned important, we should be showing it to users, 
along with the verso, which often has the copyright notice.

kc

--

-- 
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle <at> kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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James Weinheimer | 1 Jul 2008 17:21

Re: Fw: Zoomi and your library OPAC

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries 
> [mailto:NGC4LIB <at> LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan H. Harwell
> Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 3:56 PM
> To: NGC4LIB <at> LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Fw: Zoomi and your library OPAC
> 
> I've been intrigued by this discussion and surprised that few 
> apparently have studied the history of the book.  (I only had 
> one class in it myself, so I'm not an expert.)  A major 
> concept in the field is the idea of "paratext," i.e., 
> everything that surrounds the text itself.  Readers (and 
> browsers) draw lots of meaning from typeface, tactile 
> qualities, book size, etc., and particularly from the cover.  
> Even when we're browsing a shelf of books without dust 
> jackets, we make judgments about the books via visual cues 
> (color, size, condition, etc.).  We're not just reading 
> titles.  When the dust jackets are present, we make more 
> informed judgments.  The images, blurbs, and overall look of 
> the book jacket serve to distinguish each book from the next 
> in various ways. 
> Sometimes we get false cues, of course, sort of like the way 
> that some movies are effectively advertised as a different 
> genre via the trailer. 
> (For a hilarious take on this, see
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFlish881qY)
>  
> If you were physically browsing a library shelf, and each 
> book was in a uniform archival box with a title/author/year 
> label, how would this change your experience and your
(Continue reading)

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bibliwho | 1 Jul 2008 17:23
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Re: Fw: Zoomi and your library OPAC

For me this is a prime example of where an evidence-based approach
would be invaluable.

Set up two parallel catalogs, one with cover-enriched content, the
other without; randomly send patrons to one or the other for a period
of time; then analyze the logs for patterns in search behavior,
catalog use, etc.

Cheers,

Cab Vinton, Director
Sanbornton Public Library
Sanbornton, NH 03269
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Woodall, Nancy | 1 Jul 2008 19:11

Job Posting: Director of Bibliographic and Digital Services - University of Richmond

***************************JOB
POSTING**************************************

DIRECTOR OF BIBLIOGRAPHIC AND DIGITAL SERVICES
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, RICHMOND, VA

The University of Richmond (http://www.richmond.edu), a nationally
ranked liberal arts university offering a unique combination of
undergraduate and graduate programs through its schools of Arts and
Sciences, Business, Leadership Studies, Law and Continuing Studies with
approximately 3,000 undergraduate students, is seeking qualified
applicants for the position of Director of Bibliographic and Digital
Services (BDS).

Boatwright Memorial Library seeks an enthusiastic and outgoing leader
who will provide strategic planning and advocacy for the organization
and overall success of BDS. This position directs a staff of five
librarians and eight support staff in providing digital library
services, collection development, acquisitions, cataloging, serials and
electronic resource management for the University of Richmond community.
These operations involve print & non-print media, licensed electronic
resources, and digital formats. The Director of BDS provides ongoing
evaluation of these services, develops new, sustainable services, and
incorporates new technologies.

Ideal candidates will have a MLS/MLIS from ALA-accredited program;
minimum 5 years experience with supervising full-time library staff;
excellent communication and interpersonal skills; leadership skills;
project management experience; grant writing ability; demonstrated
knowledge of metadata schemas, digital repository architecture, digital
(Continue reading)

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Karen Coyle | 1 Jul 2008 23:01

Re: Fw: Zoomi and your library OPAC

James Weinheimer wrote:
>
> The possibilities with full-text Google Book searches may change some of
> these considerations, though. The title page or book jacket is always
> available on Google Books and may provide more paradata, while scholars may
> be able to see enough of a book to rule it out.
>
>
>   
Lately I've been having trouble getting to the title pages on Google. I 
would have assumed that they were always available, even for the limited 
view books, but I often find that I either can't get to it, or it only 
displays as a small image and I can't enlarge it enough to actually read 
it.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ADY3AAAAIAAJ

kc

--

-- 
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle <at> kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
------------------------------------
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Jonathan Rochkind | 1 Jul 2008 23:13
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Re: Fw: Zoomi and your library OPAC

There are plenty of records in Google that are even _less_ than "limited 
view".

In Google's interface, some records are noted as "no preview available", 
and for these you aren't going to get a title page. However, it seems 
that "snippet view", which is what google labels the one Karen points 
out, _sometimes_ ends up being essentially "no preview available" too.

"Limited preview" and "full view" will always have a title page, I 
think. "No preview available" will never. "Snippet view" will... sometimes.

[ And oddly, while there are FOUR viewability statuses I note in google 
books own interface, I believe that the GBS API only provides _three_, 
lumping "snippet" and "none" together? Maybe? Not sure.]

Jonathan

Karen Coyle wrote:
> James Weinheimer wrote:
>>
>> The possibilities with full-text Google Book searches may change some of
>> these considerations, though. The title page or book jacket is always
>> available on Google Books and may provide more paradata, while 
>> scholars may
>> be able to see enough of a book to rule it out.
>>
>>
>>   
> Lately I've been having trouble getting to the title pages on Google. 
> I would have assumed that they were always available, even for the
(Continue reading)

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Jonathan Rochkind | 1 Jul 2008 23:32
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Re: Fw: Zoomi and your library OPAC

Actually, after looking at this further, it appears that you've never 
going to get a title page for "snippet view" either. "Snippet view" 
means that Google will not show you any complete pages (not even the 
title page), but only "cuttings" or "snippets" from the page that match 
your search results.

[ Oddly, for "full view" books, you generally get textual search results 
for search inside the book. For "snippet" books, which won't let you see 
the full text, you get pictorial  page-image "snippets" in your search 
results showing matches, which are arguably more useful and elegant, but 
are only provided for books which _won't_ show you page images of the 
complete book, as far as I can tell!  ]

Jonathan

Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
> There are plenty of records in Google that are even _less_ than 
> "limited view".
>
> In Google's interface, some records are noted as "no preview 
> available", and for these you aren't going to get a title page. 
> However, it seems that "snippet view", which is what google labels the 
> one Karen points out, _sometimes_ ends up being essentially "no 
> preview available" too.
>
> "Limited preview" and "full view" will always have a title page, I 
> think. "No preview available" will never. "Snippet view" will... 
> sometimes.
>
> [ And oddly, while there are FOUR viewability statuses I note in
(Continue reading)

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Michael Fitzgerald | 2 Jul 2008 01:03
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Re: Fw: Zoomi and your library OPAC

Resending as this hasn't show up from last week:
====================================

Thank you, Kyle Banerjee, for continuing to make the case that the 
goals of Amazon and those of the research library are different. 
Sales are not the same as use. Just because Amazon is good at *what 
it does* doesn't mean that it is good at *what a research library 
does*. [Now thanks to Jim Weinheimer for his input regarding this.]

I think cover images can be helpful, but not nearly as much as 
certain aspects of metadata that are already captured by library 
catalogs. Charles Ledvina is perhaps being facetious, but I would 
love to see a spine view of a virtual bookshelf so that the physical 
dimensions of a book (number of pages, height) would help me. If I 
remember that I found something in a particular sized book, why is it 
so difficult for the catalog to assist me when this information is 
right there in the catalog record? A massive multi-volume set looks 
quite different on the shelf than it does in a brief OPAC view. And 
something like heft isn't conveyed by the cover view. In many cases I 
couldn't care less what the cover looks like.

I would also like something like a little colored dot on that virtual 
spine to indicate the presence of an index, and a different colored 
dot to indicate the presence of a bibliography, for example. The 
point that Amazon's "search inside" function is useful is quite 
accurate, but to save the time of the reader, how about not making me 
take the thing off the shelf first? How about not making me walk to 
the shelf in the first place? Presence of index or bibliography is 
just another facet. This is information already in the catalog 
record. If I could limit my browsing to only books with indexes and
(Continue reading)

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Jimmie Lundgren | 2 Jul 2008 16:48
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Re: Zoomi and your library OPAC

My academic library's public interface has begun displaying GOOGLEBOOKS
bookcovers when they are available. At first I just thought the
bookcover displays helped to make the catalog more attractive and added
a little additional information about the resource. That made them seem
worthwhile to me, even given the inconsistency in their availability and
some occasional mismatches. However, last week a reference librarian
told me she had just used the bookcover display to get back to a
specific one of several similar sources she had used previously, and now
I have a new appreciation for the potential of such images displayed in
the catalog to add to, (although certainly not replace), our current
ways to support the "identify" user task. 

While I offer this as anecdotal evidence, I think it will be great for
research to be performed to uncover more about user behavior in relation
to new catalog features such as these. Even though the rapidly
developing improvements to OPAC interfaces constitute a moving target
and will be difficult to study in reliable ways, such research is badly
needed to direct the developments more effectively. Thanks,
Jimmie 

-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB <at> LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Chris Thiessen
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 5:00 PM
To: NGC4LIB <at> LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Zoomi and your library OPAC

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.
(Continue reading)

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