BiblioCommons
I’m enjoying checking out BiblioCommons at the Oakville, Ontario, library in Canada.
Library Journal covered it here: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6579748.html
I also enjoyed the recent coverage from Jenny Levine:
http://theshiftedlibrarian.com/archives/2008/07/23/bibliocommons-goes-live.html
As I noted in my CiL talk, it’s refreshing just to see a catalog I could log in to with a username instead of a barcode - what a novel idea! Don’t even get me started on the fact that the interface includes terms like “connect,” “network,” and “trusted sources.” So much good stuff here, though - ratings, tags, lists, users, comments, recommendations, faceted browsing, contextual help, natural language (not jargon), user-based age ratings, “share with a friend” links, similar titles, a shelf browser with cover images, and the ability to get rewards for adding content to the catalog. I love that I didn’t have to dig deeply into the catalog to start finding user-generated content, as I often have to do in other OPACs when I need an example.
I’ll just add: “what she said” and urge you to go try it out. I feel as though I’ve seen a glimpse of the future and it’s friendly, usable, connected and rather beautiful. ILS Vendors take note!
August 5th, 2008 at 5:07 am
[...] Have a look at the catalogue of the Oakville Public Library in Canada. When you’ve searched for and found a book, you can click on the title and along with more info about the book comes a link at the side to “Browse the shelf”. You can look and see what’s on the shelf next to the one you were interested in! When will we be able to do this in small school libraries? For more information on BiblioCommons, look here. [...]