Technically Random

Issue 3 of The Code4Lib Journal is out! After just a few issues, I think this is turning out to be the best place to learn about new and innovative work being done at other libraries.

In this issue you’ll find:

• Alternative Solutions for Off-Campus Authentication
• Distributed Version Control and Library Metadata
• The Planets Testbed: Science for Digital Preservation
• Bringing Sheet Music to Life: My Experiences with OMR
• Building an Archival Collections Portal
• Developing an Academic Image Collection with Flickr
• Making Patron Data Work Harder: User Search Terms as Access Points?
• Collecting Virtual Reference Statistics with an IM Chat-Bot
• WordPress as a Content Management System for a Library Web Site: How to Create a Dynamically Generated Subject Guide

The latest in the Educause “7 Things You Should Know About…” series.

7 Things You Should Know About Multi-Touch Interfaces

Multi-touch interfaces are input devices that recognize two or more simultaneous touches, allowing one or more users to interact with computer applications through various gestures created by fingers on a surface. Some devices also recognize differences in pressure and temperature. Multi-touch technology introduces users to swipes, pinches, rotations, and other actions that allow for richer, more immediate interaction with digital content. Multi-touch devices and supporting applications offer diverse ways of visualizing information to improve understanding, and they facilitate new ways to foster collaborative creation, permitting several users to work simultaneously on a single screen.

Bringing it back home, how about a multi-touch catalog app that uses the two-finger motion that you use to flip through catalog cards in a drawer.

The May/June 2008 issue of D-Lib Magazine is out.

There are a couple of interesting articles, including one on a Recommendation System implementation in a library catalog.

Check out the full issue at: http://www.dlib.org/

-Corey

With Google’s announced release of an API for Google Books, it was only a matter of time before this functionality was integrated into WorldCat Local. The Google Books lookup was released as part of this month’s regular WCL maintenance. It appears that the ISBN is used as the lookup, so materials lacking an ISBN won’t include the preview button. So, no, it’s not perfect, but it is another big step in the right direction.

Here’s what it looks like for “The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy“.

This is a great feature and something that our users have requested and will definitely appreciate.

The DLF ILS and Discovery Systems group is proposing

standard interfaces for integrating the data and services of the Integrated Library System (ILS) with new applications supporting user discovery. Such standard interfaces will allow libraries to deploy new discovery services to meet ever-growing user expectations in the Web 2.0 era, take full advantage of advanced ILS data management and services, and encourage a strong, innovative community and marketplace in next-generation library management and discovery applications.

This set of standards (nicknamed the “Berkeley Accord”) would support:

• Harvesting of data records for library collections, both in full and incrementally;
• Querying for real-time availability of an item;
• Stable linking to any item in an OPAC.

A number of ILS vendors have already signed on.  Our own, beloved, Innovative Interfaces being the exception.  See the full announcement on Peter Brantley’s blog here.

The King County Library System catalog now has tags and book recommendations using the LibraryThing for Libraries catalog widgets.  Take a look at this record for Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking.   On the bottom of the record display you’ll see a list of books that ‘People Also Liked’ and a tag list for the book.  Clicking on one of the tags will bring up a tag browser to see other books that share the same tag.