This was on the wall as part of the ground rules in the large meeting room for the RRS Comnference. Works for me! 🙂
http://www.rethinkingresourcesharing.org
Yesterday I spoke at the Rethinking Resource Sharing Conference outside of Chicago. This group is doing some darn cool stuff and their Web page sums up their goal nicely:
Creating a new global service framework that allows individuals to obtain what they want based on factors such as cost, time, format, and delivery. This framework will encompass promoting and exposing library services in a variety of environments.
I stayed to see a presentation about their new “Get It” Button. The Get-It Prototype Demonstration by John Bodfish of the Interoperability Working Group was fascinating. The button was described as a way to get particular materials, for example a book listed on a bookseller’s page, etc. If I’m browsing a certain title, I can click the Get It Button and a window pops up with a listing of various places to get the item, including the local library. It details prices — and the library shows up as FREE. Users can customize the location and other information. Currently it’s a Firefox plug in with more options and platforms to come. I asked to try it out as soon as possible.
Michael Colford posted about it as well at the Boston Regional Library System blog: John Bodfish, Senior Technical Designer/Developer at OCLC PICA, Inc, and member of the Interoperability Working Group of RRS, provided a demo of the proposed “Get It Button.” Currently being developed as a Firefox add-on, the “Get It Button” can be used while viewing a webpage that includes bibliographic resources, such as Amazon.com, a library catalog, an online syllabus, a page from iMDB (The Internet Movie Database), to find out several options for attaining that resource, whether that be purchasing the material from an online vendor, borrowing it free from your local library, or in the case of movies, adding it to your Netflix queue. It’s an astounding piece of programming that we’ll be hearing much more about in the very near future.
From the notes of the demo: “Users can click the button to find out where they can get the item they are looking for. It’s open source, vendor neutral, could be promoted by libraries, won’t belong to vendors or specific libraries.”
HOT HOT HOT!
I’m interested to see where this goes. I wish much success for this ad hoc group of librarians keenly aware that current ILL systems just do not fit the bill anymore. Well done! Any folks at RRS – if I didn;t get any details right please let me know!
The group’s wiki is here: http://www.rrs-wiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page