Library Gazette

On Wednesday the Z. Smith Reynolds Library implemented a new discovery system for their library collections. The system, developed initially by Villanova University, employs innovative indexing and searching techniques to help patrons find and interact with library resources.

This new tool adds the ability for patrons to discover new relationships between resources through the use of faceted browsing, a technique which is commonly used on web-based stores such as Amazon. It also introduces new community-focused features such as the ability to add comments and tags to catalog records. These features allow library patrons to easily discover resources by combining several limiting criteria (such as format, location, and publication date) using dynamic links on the results page.

The system complements a suite of locally-developed and open source information systems that the library employs including the New Book/Film Walls, WakeSpace (a digital library of WFU collections), Book delivery and reserves services, and library-sponsored blogs and wikis for the university community.

Yesterday we held the inaugural Emerging Technologies Talk for the staff development committee. Our plan is to host a monthly discussion (two weeks off from the journal group) on new and emerging technologies.

To get us off to a good start I though I’d go with something that people in the library would be interested in personally, might find relevant for work, and would show that emerging technologies can be fun. The topic? Social Software built around books and reading. You might have heard of some of them: GoodReads, LibraryThing, Shelfari, Amazon’s profiles, Google’s My Library, and My Worldcat. I ran through a quick presentation just to get everyone on the same page, then we talked about some of the similarities, differences, strengths, and weaknesses in each of the options.

If you’re interested, here’s the presentation:

We’d like to host on of these workshops once a month, so if there’s a new technology that you’re curious about, just let me know! We’ve already had requests that next month we talk about some of the things that Google is doing (the Chrome browser and the move from Google Pages to Googld Sites) and some of the things that former Google employees are doing (the Cuil search engine and Friendfeed).

Today some of the RITS team members, Kevin, Kaeley, Sarah, and I, traveled to UNC-G to meet with reference librarians interested in technology at Jackson Library. It was a good meeting with a turnout of about 12 library staff members between UNCG and WFU.

The conversation was casual, with short demonstrations of some of the different things we are doing followed by discussion of similarities and differences in our experiences. Here’s Kaeley talking about marketing:

On the WFU side, we talked about marketing, blogs as a CMS, the toolkit, and libguides. UNCG shared their IR project, chat widget, use of Facebook in marketing, and their Blackboard project.

We had a good time meeting our colleagues, and a tasty lunch at Jack’s Corner. It was good to hear what local colleagues are doing, and to know that we’re all looking at some of the same issues and challenges though our communities are quite different.

Hopefully, once the renovations are done, we can have our UNCG friends to come see the improvements first hand!