(crossposted at Scriblio.net)
Using the newly released book viewability API in Google Book Search, Plymouth State University’s Lamson Library and Learning Commons is one of the first libraries to move beyond simply listing their books online and open them up to reading and searching via the web.
Take a look at how this works with books [...]

Posted March 13, 2008 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information. Tags: books, ebooks, GBS, Google Book Search, lib20, libraries, library 2.0, library catalogs, read online, scriblio. 2 Comments.

Take note of the “New Feature: Text this to your cellphone” line above.
Adam Brin of Tricollege Libraries explained that the “text this to me” feature he built to send location information about items in the library catalog as text messages to a user’s cell phone is being used as many as 60 times a [...]

Posted February 28, 2008 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information. Tags: catalog, lib20, libraries, library 2.0, library catalogs, scriblio, sms, text this to me, txt. 5 Comments.

(It’s old, but I just stumbled into it again…) Karen Calhoun’s report, The Changing Nature of the Catalog and its Integration with Other Discovery Tools, included a lot of things I agree with, but it also touched something I’m a bit skeptical about: automated metadata production.
Some interviewees noted that today’s catalogs are put together mainly [...]

Posted May 10, 2007 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information. Tags: automation, computer generated metadata, ease of use, lib20, libraries, library 2.0, library catalogs, metadata, opac. Be the first one.

I was honored to join the conversation yesterday for the latest Talis Library 2.0 Gang podcast, this one on folksonomies and tags. The MP3 is already posted and, as usual, it makes me wonder if I really sound like that. Still, listen to the other participants, they had some great things to say and made [...]

Posted July 27, 2006 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information. Tags: folksonomies, folksonomy, interview, l2, lib20, libraries, library, library 2.0, library catalogs, library systems, opacs, podcast, tagging, tags, talis, talking with talis. 6 Comments.

I just received this email from the A9 OpenSearch team:
We have just released OpenSearch 1.1 Draft 2. We hope to declare it the final version shortly, and it is already supported by A9.com. Uprading from a previous version should only take a few minutes…
OpenSearch 1.1 allows you to specify search results in HTML, Atom, or [...]

Posted December 13, 2005 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information, Technology. Tags: a9, a9.com, aggregated search, amazon, federated search, libraries, library, library catalog, library catalogs, metasearch, opac, open search, opensearch, search. 4 Comments.

I hadn’t seen Ryan Eby’s post at LibDev that connected ILSs with WordPress before I posted that library catalogs should be like WordPress here. It connects with a my comment on a post at Meredith Farkas’ Information Wants To Be Free. My comment there goes in two directions, but I’d like to focus on the [...]

Posted November 27, 2005 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information. Tags: catalog data, coders wanted, future, future of libraries, future of library catalogs, future of the ils, future of the opac, libraries, library, library 2.0, library catalog, library catalogs, library technology, library20, opac, programmers wanted, smart software, software design. 13 Comments.

Library catalogs should be be like WordPress. That is, every entry should support comments, trackbacks, and pingbacks. Every record should have a permalink. Content should be tag-able. The look should be easily customizable with themes. Everything should be available via RSS or Atom. It should be extendable with a rich plugin API. And when that [...]

Posted November 26, 2005 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information. Tags: libraries, library, library 2.0, library catalog, library catalogs, library20, opac, wordpress. 8 Comments.

I’m here at the NELINET Bibliographic Services Conference at the College of the Holy Cross today.
The conference is titled “Google vs. the OPAC: the challenge is on!” and there’s quite a lineup of speakers.
My presentation is on “the social life of metadata.” My slides are online, and below is some background.
The Library Catalog…
The catalog is [...]

Posted November 18, 2005 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information. Tags: bibliographic services, bibliographic services conference, google, google vs. the opac, libraries, library, library catalog, library catalogs, nelinet, nelinet bibliographic services conference, opac, opacs, social life of metadata, the social life of metadata, worcester, worcester ma. 3 Comments.

Libraries are known for books. And despite the constant march of technology, despite the fact that we can put a bazillion songs in our pocket, despite the availability of the New York Times and so many other newspapers and thousands of journals online, books are a big part of what libraries are. Books, dead tree [...]

Posted July 26, 2005 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Technology. Tags: handheld, handheld computer, laptop, laptop computer, libraries, library, library catalog, library catalogs, opac, pepper, pepper computer, pepper pad, ultra portable. 5 Comments.