I've read a large number of posts recently about 'Why my OPACs sucks' and so much has already been written that I don't want to repeat it all here. What I will do is look at 3 sites that have made me think about what they offer that our library website doesn't...
Librarything
Yesterday Librarything hit nine million books catalogued - they blogged briefly about this and the point that caught my eye was "If LibraryThing were a "real" library, we'd now be the 10th largest in the country (ALA fact sheet)". No one forces people to catalogue their books on Librarything and yet over 95,000 people (latest figure I could find on the website) have signed up. Not only are people eagerly signing up but they are often willing to pay a subscription use the site (only necessary if you wish to add more than 200 books to your account). Imagine if your library catalogue was so good that people were eager to sign up and use it! Cataloguing books is simple and uses records from authoritative sources such as The British Library and the Library of Congress via their Z39.50 servers (best use I've seen of Z39.50 so far!). There are lots of ways to find new books to read, suggestions and unsuggestions are all intriguing - imagine looking at a library catalogue and seeing the words 'Don't Read This' above a book! Makes me want to read it! Most importantly the users have ownership, they choose to upload their books, they eagerly tag them, search for other books and share information with other users. We spend ages in libraries looking for innovative ways to get readers to review books or join reading groups but obviously there are plenty of people out there eager to share their opinions on books and we just aren't reaching them with our lovely old OPAC.
BooksWellRead
Only recently come across this site thanks to a mention on Phil Bradley's I want to blog. Here's the goal from their website
"The goal of BooksWellRead is to be the online destination of choice for people who want to 'digest' what they read by capturing their thoughts in writing. BooksWellRead has been designed to be simple, fast, and easy to use. We hope you like it and tell others about it!! By the numbers: 3007 books, 1016 entries, 389 members"
Obviously much smaller than LibraryThing but describes itself more as an online book journal than a library. It is designed for people who like to reflect on what they have read and possibly share those reflections with others. I have to admit that I haven't yet logged in and fully explored this site but I like the focus on thinking about what you've read rather than just listed everything you own. I can imagine using this to keep records of books I've borrowed from the library or wish lists of books I'd like to read. I'd like to see a library catalogue that allowed you to add books to your basket and then save them to a wish list which you could look at and amend whenever you logged in (or even upload to something like BooksWellRead or your Amazon wish list). And a free text comment section to remind yourself why you added it to the basket in the first place! Again the key is fun of reading other people reviews and the curiousity factor of seeing what else that person has read.
Both LibraryThing and BooksWellRead demonstrate what we already know about readers in libraries - everyone likes to know what other people have read and recently returned and love to have other people's opinions on a book even if they just want to disagree with it!
Booksfree.com
This is a site that interests me because of my involvement in interlibrary loans. Basically it is NetFlix for books. You create a list of books you would like to read - they suggest having at least 10-15 titles on your list at all times - and you get new books on your list when you return the ones you have. They have different subscription levels depending on how many books at a time you wish to have from $8.49 a month for 2 books to $34.99 a month for 12 books. The books are sent direct to the user in the post and a pre-paid return mailer is included to return the books. They have more than 79,800 titles in their paperbacks range and do not charge any late fees. They also have a CD/MP3 audiobooks service. There is even an option to keep the book you have rented if you really like it (only for post-1995 publications). I couldn't find any information on the site about how many people have signed up to this service but according to their press information they have been around since 2000 so they must be doing pretty well! I'm really interested in ways that public libraries can provide direct delivery of books to readers. There's a great article on Techessence looking at Library Delivery 2.0 which looks at how Netflix and Amazon are changing people's expectations. David Lee King's blog post The "Missing Piece" of the Library Netflix Model pointed out that Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library have been mailing all holds to patrons since the 1970s (for UK folk that's sending requests to borrowers in the post!) and their director describes it as one of the most important library services. Is this something that libraries in the UK could provide either as a free or premium rate service? At the moment we usually charge just to request a book on the shelf at a different branch so not sure how much we would have to charge for a postal service, especially for an item of indeterminate weight or size.
Would love to know if any public libraries in the UK are trialling something like this or coming up with innovative 2.0 changes to their websites...
Showing posts with label future of libraries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label future of libraries. Show all posts
Tuesday, 9 January 2007
Sunday, 7 January 2007
Beyond Borders
Thoughts on a trip to Borders...
Their mission statement: 'To be the best-loved provider of books, music, films, and other entertainment and informational products and services.' (from their website www.bordersstores.co.uk)
Things I liked:
Arrangement of shelves and seating in fiction section
Colourful children's section including round sofa area for sharing stories
Things I disliked:
Too much of the store taken up with non-book items such as Paperchase outlet, calendars, CDs and board games
No map - the fiction section was obvious but it was difficult to find areas in the non fiction
Scifi and fantasy books lumped together and just labelled scifi (at least label them scifi and fantasy!)
Poor range of stock in non fiction eg just 2 books on Rome and half a shelf of very basic genealogy books
Staff did not seem particularly interested in what they were doing or aware of the customers
I've been to our new Borders store a couple of times now and been very disappointed twice. The bookselling scene in our city is dominated by Waterstones and although I always enjoy visiting Waterstones I was looking forward to some competition and some new book promotion ideas to steal! I don't believe libraries and bookshops should be the same, they each have their own role to play in the reading experience, but I do think that libraries can often learn from their commercial cousins especially when it comes to stock layout, promotion and service delivery. For a large store, the Borders I visited had a very limited range of non fiction stock, probably due to the amount of floor space devoted to selling cards, calendars and CDs etc. Planning a trip to Rome next month, I visted Waterstones earlier in the week and found a shelf full of books covering almost all of the main travel book series. At Borders I found 2 books, both aimed at the independent traveller. Genealogy rarely seems to be covered well beyond the basic level in mainstream bookshops but Borders had the poorest section I have seen outside of a supermarket book section!
My library lesson - many of the elements we are being encouraged to include in our libraries were things I disliked about Borders. I found it frustrating that there are several large music/film stores in the city but Borders still tries to compete with them at the expense of the one thing I had gone there for - books. We also have plenty of stores selling calendars, cards and similar products. The atmosphere did not make me want to stay and browse and the staff did not encourage me to approach them (mostly because they were complaining loudly about being open til 10pm!). I hope that libraries don't go the same way, people frustrated because they can't find the books they want or the staff interaction they need because we are too busy generating income with DVD rentals and deleting librarian posts to make short term savings for the council.
Can we go beyond Borders and create a fantastic library service instead?!
Their mission statement: 'To be the best-loved provider of books, music, films, and other entertainment and informational products and services.' (from their website www.bordersstores.co.uk)
Things I liked:
Arrangement of shelves and seating in fiction section
Colourful children's section including round sofa area for sharing stories
Things I disliked:
Too much of the store taken up with non-book items such as Paperchase outlet, calendars, CDs and board games
No map - the fiction section was obvious but it was difficult to find areas in the non fiction
Scifi and fantasy books lumped together and just labelled scifi (at least label them scifi and fantasy!)
Poor range of stock in non fiction eg just 2 books on Rome and half a shelf of very basic genealogy books
Staff did not seem particularly interested in what they were doing or aware of the customers
I've been to our new Borders store a couple of times now and been very disappointed twice. The bookselling scene in our city is dominated by Waterstones and although I always enjoy visiting Waterstones I was looking forward to some competition and some new book promotion ideas to steal! I don't believe libraries and bookshops should be the same, they each have their own role to play in the reading experience, but I do think that libraries can often learn from their commercial cousins especially when it comes to stock layout, promotion and service delivery. For a large store, the Borders I visited had a very limited range of non fiction stock, probably due to the amount of floor space devoted to selling cards, calendars and CDs etc. Planning a trip to Rome next month, I visted Waterstones earlier in the week and found a shelf full of books covering almost all of the main travel book series. At Borders I found 2 books, both aimed at the independent traveller. Genealogy rarely seems to be covered well beyond the basic level in mainstream bookshops but Borders had the poorest section I have seen outside of a supermarket book section!
My library lesson - many of the elements we are being encouraged to include in our libraries were things I disliked about Borders. I found it frustrating that there are several large music/film stores in the city but Borders still tries to compete with them at the expense of the one thing I had gone there for - books. We also have plenty of stores selling calendars, cards and similar products. The atmosphere did not make me want to stay and browse and the staff did not encourage me to approach them (mostly because they were complaining loudly about being open til 10pm!). I hope that libraries don't go the same way, people frustrated because they can't find the books they want or the staff interaction they need because we are too busy generating income with DVD rentals and deleting librarian posts to make short term savings for the council.
Can we go beyond Borders and create a fantastic library service instead?!
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