Phil Wolff dropped the K-bomb:
Version 1
Pass two elements:
- ISBN
- ZIP code
This might look like:
Return:
- The book description and a list of libraries in or near the location that have this book in their collection. Availability info too. Link to each library’s page for that book.
Phil doesn’t know it, but he just opened a major pandora’s box in libraryland. In a room full of relatives, you don’t talk about religion or politics. In a room full of geeks, you don’t ask which operating system is best. And in a room full of librarians, you don’t really want to ask about Earth’s Largest Library.
You see, Amazon, Google, and AskJeeves have all rocked our world, and we’re not much further along than we were when Steve Coffman wrote his controversial article in 1999. Which, unfortunately, means the answer to Phil’s question is no one. At least, not in the foreseeable future.
It’s not totally our fault, though. A little realized fact outside of libraryland is that we’re completely beholden to our database vendors. For the most part, we can’t build our own software for running library catalogs, mainly because of a lack of money, time, resources, and programmer librarians. So we have to rely on the handful of vendors that make the software that runs our catalogs. Naturally, these vendors don’t really play nicely together, and it’s a very drawn-out process to switch from one vendor to another so it’s relatively rare.
There’s more in her blog entry. This would rock my personal world, though.
