Collection Development for My Random Life.

I spent the day at the first part of a conference titled – Next Generation ILS: Mashed-up, Fried or Half-baked? It was a great opportunity to talk about how we integrate library services and the interfaces and features we have in libraries. Here are my take aways so far:

• We should throw out “integrated” and replace it with interchangeable or inter-operable. (i.e. we are able to pick and choose from vendors and/or open source each features we want — circ, cataloging, opac, etc. — and plug it where needed)
• The “next generation ILS” is more about new modes of thinking not necessarily new technology. We need to examine new paradigms and dissect old ones.
• Open source is not the cure-all or be-all. It helps but the risks and cost are almost the same as going with a vendor.
• Frustration with ILS systems is common among many libraries  — we need to be talking among ourselves more and perhaps developing common tools/solutions and not waiting for a vendor to do it for us.
• More than a few of us (including yours truly) said to blow up the OPAC completely.

There has been some really good discussions at this conference. Though there is a decent cross-section of library types and librarians represented, I think it would be helpful to have a representative from every department in a single library there to see the organization impact in a more holistic way. Maybe some of that will come about tomorrow. I will try to report back on that. Otherwise a great conference and on-going conversation so far.

What if library services were designed this way (see video)? That tends to be the good thing about libraries. Service first. Flash & pizazz second. Misdirection, hopefully never.

The video is located here.

A recent article in the Economist magazine points how Chinese scientists were able to discover the main biochemical pathways related to drug addiction without having to step in a lab or do an experiment. How did they do this? They data-mined the literature that already existed on the subject and identified the biochemical pathways from the fragmented info contained in research papers already published on the topic.

This type of research points out the value of open content as well as libraries, since libraries are places where access to multiple databases and materials are available on the same subject all in one place. No fuss, no muss.

Librarians once added content to research and scholarship through indexing, creating bibliographies, and maintaining clip files on topics. Much of that work has been replaced by search engines and databases. Perhaps data-mining might fill this void?

More info:

Going by the Book – The Economist (1/12/08): http://tinyurl.com/24eu5s