Superpatron - Friends of the Library, for the net

Colourphon - books by color service!

I don't have the full back story to this service yet, but Dave Pattern pointed out this site called colourphon which does image analysis to return the color of a book's cover.

new Google Book Search API in the works?

I got a query from someone inside Google who is working on a "new Google Book Search API" and looking for people interested in it. I'm trying to find out more.

I suspect it's different from this Google Book Search part of the Google AJAX Search API, but that's a guess; it might indeed be the same. If that's the case, here's some resources from resourceful people:

Dojo: Meet Google Book Search tells the story of integrating Google Book Search with the SFU Bookswap using the Dojo toolkit. Dustin Thomson put this together - he writes:

Google offers a Search container, which allows the integration of several search sources, including the web, images, blogs, news items and books. I only wanted the Book source so I chose to take the simple route and not use the container class. Instead I used the GbookSearch object directly, which allows me to access the data more easily as well as utilize only the desired functionality.

Among other things, he documents how to get book covers from Google via their API (and a bit of URL rewriting). Useful stuff, too much for me to parse to put together a sample for myself right now but it doesn't look like the resulting code is more than a page of text.

Technorati Tags: google, dojo, google-book-search, gbooksearch, sfu

Reported problems with AADL greasemonkey script

One of the users of the greasemonkey script I wrote last year that puts AADL holdings information into Amazon reported that it stopped working under Leopard.

Haven't debugged it yet, but I want to acknowledge the problem openly (in the hopes of course that someone else will fix it).

Can we fix it?
Yes we can!
-- Bob the Builder

Jon Udell's Library Lookup has moved

If your bookmark for Jon Udell's Library Lookup doesn't work, here's why - it's moved:

I’ve been continuing to receive requests to update the LibraryLookup bookmarklet generator which, since it’s hosted at InfoWorld, I can no longer maintain. So took a snapshot at jonudell.net/LibraryLookupGenerator.html, and I’ll make updates there. Today, thanks to Betsy Ptak, I added support for a newer version of PowerPac.

While I was at it, I resolved a longstanding annoyance. On Firefox, I was never able to figure out how to ensure that the lookup window would open in front of the current window. Turns out that Michael Moncur found a workaround over two years ago. Apparently it’s still needed in the current version of Firefox, so I rolled it into the generator.

Library Lookup gives you a one-click way to determine if your library has a copy of a book that you see on your screen - very handy!

Technorati Tags: library-lookup, books, library

Things I want to write more about here - categories A-G

Every so often I run into corners of the world that I want to explore. Here's some list of the things I'd like to write more about, even if I don't have a full blog-length posting for any of them written right now. I'm keying off the categories I've set up.

This is part 1: Amazon through Google Book Search.

Sorry no links yet....will hyperlink as I have time to edit, but I thought I'd get this out into the world.

Amazon - about the book cover and album cover art database they have; how to set up an affiliate bookstore that actually works; on using Amazon to do wish lists that are then fulfilled through your library (via Jon Udell); on using Amazon as a book finding system and then using Book Burro or similar to connect back to your library; much more I'm sure.

Ann Arbor - plans for a new library downtown; reviews of all of the branches; reviews of other Washtenaw County libraries; special libraries in town like the Ford Presidential Library

Archives - an interview with the folks who run the Labadie Collection; an interview with the Prelingers; an interview with Brewster Kahle; some discussion of the peculiar nature of archives in the digital age

Archival Television - Jeff Ubois blog of the same name; the loss of the video record; clearing and securing rights; bootlegs on Youtube; museums of the broadcast industry

Beyond big vendors - this was the title of a talk I gave; an exploration of consolidation in the integrated library systems space, and some understanding of new alternatives

Book Burro - at least an annual post on what it is (repetition is the soul of the net); a screencast showing how I use it; documentation for online book finding system developers to get them to have Book Burro pop up on their book screens; a discussion of how tools like this can be funded by affiliate revenues

Book covers - as finding aids; variations between editions; in online book finding and book inventory systems; search by contents of the cover, not contents of the book

Book trading - more reviews of any book trading systems I find; some stories about book swap clubs that meet in person; children's birthday parties where everyone brings a book and everyone gets a book

Bookins - how they advertise new inventory on Twitter; comparison with other book swap sites; integration with LibraryThing

Books - more book reviews, lots of book reviews would be welcomed; the book publishing industry as a whole; old books; smelly books; pretty much anything is fair game.

Books sorted by color - more discussion of cover art, illustrations, other metadata about the book captured in the cover art but not indexed by typical book finding systems; the book illustration business; how covers are designed; history of binding systems; algorithms to determine which color a book is; art and photographic illustrations of installations where books have been sorted by color

Bookshelves - compact shelving, buying shelves for personal libraries, reviews of bookcases, shelving for libraries, innovations in book shelving, reviews of books about bookshelves, how to build your own, built in shelving, what to do when yours fill up

Code - more code! software that does interesting things with book and library data; mashups, data extraction, search algorithms, recommender systems, page layout, interactive design, home grown alternative views of the library

Collection development - impact of patrons on collections; controversial materials and how they are added to the collection and perhaps subtracted from the collection; metrics used for weeding and deaccessions; building your personal library from another library's discards; libraries as endangering printed materials

Electronic collections - library originated book and non-book collections; hardware, software, and systems for managing and cataloging same; preservation of digital relics; copyright, fair use and international implications of same; the proper provenance of enthusiast collectors

Events and exhibits - individual events and exhibits, and also ways by which libraries can improve their ability to bring people through the door by hosting book-themed events. Compare libraries to bookstores and see how they stack up; facilities building and planning with events in mind.

Film - libraries for film; collecting video and film; archival television (via Jeff Ubois); rights, copyrights, and the like; stock footage libraries; impact of digital distribution on the circulation patterns in public libraries that have big DVD collections

Friends Bookshop - relationships between Friends groups and libraries; examples of particularly fun bookshops; self service bookshops; using friends book inventory to do outreach; purposes of friends bookshops - to entertain people who want to run a bookstore, or to raise money, or both

Friends of the library - about national and local organizations; demographics of friends groups; "Friends of the Library, for the net"; library advocacy; when friends groups turn into haters groups

Games - games in the library; word games; something more about Eli@AADL; Wii at the library. Games in the kids room - ice cream truck. Learning from games.

Google Book Search - contracts, restrictions on use of data, inaccuracies within, quality of scanning, quality of metadata, shout out to Ben Bunnell, aftermarket greasemonkey hacks to fix issues with, comparison with Microsoft et al, comparison with Open Library, Distributed Proofreaders

Google Scholar - library use and access to, Andrew Odlyzko on open publishing, relative frequency of citation of non-internet publications, Math 40 yr history of increased collaboration via Patrick Ion, quality of data, quality of metadata, use by scholars as replacement for vita

Eli Neiburger presentation on implementing Drupal at AADL - 9/24

from the Ann Arbor Drupal Users Group

Don't miss this meeting!!!

I'm happy to announce that Eli Neiburger of the Ann Arbor District Library is going to present at this coming Ann Arbor Drupal Users group meeting this Monday night 24Sep07 @ 7pm.

This will be a rare chance to look under the hood of a regionally high profile Drupal site.

We will meet at Ann Arbor Spark our new home.

The site has tons of features, users, images and so much more. I don't presume to know anything about what's going on behind the scenes. But from a users perspective it is handling tons of logistics in the form of inventory, users, transactions, reservations, reviews, events, interoperability with other web services, ....

I have wanted to see this presentation since I learned about this site. I can't wait and hope to see you there.
Bring a friend!

Technorati Tags: aadl, ann-arbor-district-library, drupal, eli-neiburger, ann-arbor-drupal-users-group, ann-arbor-spark, ann-arbor-usa

Ann Arbor District Library Developer Blog

The folks who do the software development at the Ann Arbor District Library have started a developer blog.

Welcome to the AADL Developer Blog! Software Development is a big part of what we do here at AADL, and this section of aadl.org is the place to keep up with our new features, see what our developers are working on, and find out what kind of tools we're playing with.

We also have open-source software that we've developed available for download, and you can find that here. Please feel free to comment on our posts or contactus if you have any other questions, and thanks for your interest

Recent blog postings include creating custom content types in Drupal, Eli Neiburger's talk on choosing games for your library , the development of the Library Lego League, and a sonnet regarding library card renewal alerts for III.

A tragedy! Your AADL card
Has now expired, and you must renew.
Just keeping track of all this stuff is hard,
And each new thing is one more thing to do.

Technorati Tags: aadl, annarbor, michigan, drupal, games, eli-neiburger, lego, iii, innovative-interfaces

Putting your library catalog inside of Facebook

Facebook just announced a new developer platform that lets you write applications that live inside their network. You register your code with their service, and when people add your application to their profile you get a simplified markup language for your code. I don't understand all of the fine points yet, nor am I likely to any time soon, but there are sample and tutorial codes out there (in PHP5) that let me bring up a tiny "hello world" style application in under an hour.

The obvious next step is to build in some kind of interface to the library catalog, right? The simple target is something along the lines of John Blyberg's Go Go Google Gadget, which shows new and popular books in a little box. Only slightly more complicated is a search interface.

No code or examples to share yet, but if anyone wants to give this a go I'm happy to see more.

Technorati Tags: facebook, library, superpatron

sirsi/dynix to halt Horizon deployments

as noted on a library listserv I get

I wanted to make sure you received the below e-mail in advance of its general distribution. Later today, SirsiDynix will be announcing a new technology platform that will blend the best features of
Horizon/Corinthian, Unicorn, and other solutions. Horizon 8.0/Corinthian will not be moved into general release, and Horizon 8.1/Corinthian will not be released. More details are below in the letter.

Two items to point out to you as a library either in the implementation queue or preparing to implement:

All implementations of Horizon 8.x/Corinthian will stop. You will be contacted by SirsiDynix within the next few days to discuss the options referenced below.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to call me. Since this will not be shared with all SirsiDynix customers until later today, please do not further distribute this email.

if I had more in this as a patron, I'd refer to "the OPAC crisis" - fortunately AADL is at least a little isolated from this particular incident.

Technorati Tags: opac, sirsi, dynix, horizon, hip

Library Lookup for MeLCaT - Michigan interlibrary loan network

MeLCat is the Michigan statewide library interlibrary loan network. From the ASDAL newsletter

At the very first MeLCat user's meeting there was a comparison made between the costs of traditional inter-library loan and this new delivery system. Traditional ILL costs between $17 and $30 dollars per item, with deliver time of up to two weeks; while MeLCat costs are between $1 to $5 dollars per item, with delivery times of one to three days. Pretty fantastic!

Indeed, with borrowing rights now at research and public libraries across the state, there's hardly ever a book I might want to look at that isn't somewhere a few days away. The trick then is finding it before you give up on your search, and for that I turned to Jon Udell's Library Lookup project. A few tweaks to my older Ann Arbor District Library lookup script created a new MeLCaT Amazon Linky (Greasemonkey needed) which embeds search results in your Amazon pages.

Thanks to superpatron Jon Udell for the original insight that led to this, and to Pittsburgh area blogger "Inner Bitch" who was the proximate cause for me revisiting this in her "Taking a can opener to Amazon" post.

The next natural step is to revisit the Google Books library lookup script I did for Google and Ann Arbor and mash that around again so it hits the whole state - I hope to have that ready in time for when Google's Ben Bunnell visits the Ann Arbor District Library on November 30 2006 (see upcoming.org for details).

UPDATE: Google Books MeLCaT library lookup just updated.

Technorati Tags: amazon, google, judell, librarylookup