Some Interesting User-Centric Feedback

BiblioCommons and Queens

I thought there were some interesting gems in this piece from Martha Whitehead and Steve Toubon on user-genrated content in the library catalogue. Some examples:

Non-librarians do not limit (i.e., use facets) very much. Librarians want to help; users want to be independent. For recently-returned books, user can say how useful it was and for which course (from list). Provide brief survey of what user used in the book (whole thing, just a chapter and which one), etc. "How is this related to other texts"?

This brings to mind some of the discussion we are having here at UPEI with respect to the OPAC and the new things we can do with our open source framework. Finding a way for students to add value to the kernel which is a bib record is key to that innovation. For example, finding an easy way for students to submit their bibliographies from papers (ideally in something like RefWorks which can then be linked to specific items) I think would be an incredibly powerful addition to a bib entity. Combined with an "exit interview" re value of the item as this piece discusses would be very powerful indeed. Now, we just need to work out HOW...

Scraped from

Comments

[Peter Rukavina]

Would it cross any privacy lines to build Last.fm-like functionality into the OPAC, anonymously, so that you add a "patrons who checked out this book also checked out..." feature?

[Mark]

A tricky one. Mostly because we wouldn't have the Amazon-level activity, so one could "extrapolate" who that person might be since the community is small. I must admit I haven't thought about this from the OPAC perspective, but I would be willing to give it a try and see if the privacy issue would be one.

Mark