If any of you were at all curious about follow up to the link I posted a few days back [about the link to a Republican web site appearing on the “hot links” section of all iBistro OPACs, a Sirsi product] I swapped a few emails with Sirsi Central about it.
Category: ‘puters
library nostalgia
You know, I know this is just me having a hard time getting with the program, but I really miss being able to look at the card in the back of a library book to see how many times it had circulated. I liked the idea that this information was available to both staff and patrons, as if information about the public library books somehow belonged to the patrons as well as the staff. I liked knowing when my books were due by looking in the book, not keeping a little slip of paper that represented all my books. I liked not having to be sure to remove that piece of paper once I was at the library so that some other patron wouldn’t find my reading list tucked into one of those little pockets that we still put into our library books, even though there are no cards to go in them now. Sort of like what this author says.
RB: I like the story about how you like to go to libraries and see how many times your books have been circulated.
CM: Yes, you can’t do that anymore because they all have computers. It used to be fun, driving across Ohio, to stop in a small town and go in a library and pull a book off the shelf—and they were always all there. And look and see that it had been taken out every four days. [thanks rachel]
CM: Yes, you can’t do that anymore because they all have computers. It used to be fun, driving across Ohio, to stop in a small town and go in a library and pull a book off the shelf—and they were always all there. And look and see that it had been taken out every four days. [thanks rachel]
Digital Bookmobiles [kitaabwala]
We all know about Brewster Kahle and the Internet Bookmobile [I hope]. Here’s how the project is working out in India.
the guys who run Google “get” librarians
An excerpt from that controversial Playboy interview with Sergei Brin. You’ll notice he never mentions Google Answers.
PLAYBOY: Librarians must hate Google. Will you put them out of business?
BRIN: Actually, more and more librarians love Google. They use it. They do an excellent job helping people find answers on the Internet in addition to using their book collections. Finding information still requires skill. It’s just that you can go much further now. Google is a tool for librarians just as it’s a tool for anyone who wants to use it.
OPAC PAC
You all know how much I love political activism, but is it strictly kosher for an OPAC vendor to be making partisan political statements with the links they add to content-included catalogs? Check the Hot Links section on the Lackawanna County System, for example.