[WEB4LIB] Re: We need an Internet Literary Database

[karen hartman]

I have been doing a lot of  thinking about how much an academic literary database was needed for a few months now.  I am running an off-campus library with no circulating books.  I have been producing subject "acquisition lists" of new books that are in the main campus library.   To make it more like people are picking a book off the shelf, I make hyperlinks to the book titles that go to Amazon.com.  This way the person gets (usually) a picture of the book's cover and some book reviews (even these mostly non-scholarly reviews are better than nothing).  Then if the users want to request the book, they have a form that they fill out, and the book comes to the library by courier the next day.   This got me thinking about how nice it would be if these hyperlinks could go to a URL that was on a non-commercial site, complete with academic book reviews, like what Choice does.  The problem is that these scholarly reviews are proprietary and not open to the public (primarily for collection development, or even if a network license was obtained, it would limit its usefulness).  All of my students live off-campus so most of them rely on a proxy server arrangement for proprietary databases.  Then I started thinking that if librarians could get together and provide a site like this (it would be a mammoth job), then I would imagine catalogs (even the Library of Congress) would link to it, to provide more information about each book for those people who are at home, and not a few feet from the shelves where the books live.  The reviews could be written by librarians or faculty from around the world.   I don't know how such a project could get off the ground, but I would love to see a  service like this.  One that was scholarly, reliable, and free to the public.
-Karen
>>> Matt Wilcox <matthew.wilcox at yale.edu> 03/27 8:21 AM >>>
Maybe Coffman was right.  Wasn't this a big piece of his "earth's larget
library" idea?  The "profit" motive would be for libraries to provide a
better service to their users.  And since the users obviously like how
amazon or barnes and noble give them more than just the basic catalog
record, it seems like a no-brainer to me (but then people have accused me
as being a no-brainer :) 

--matt



At 05:18 PM 3/26/00 -0800, Debra Lords wrote:
>Why does it have to wait to be a money maker?  What happened
>here?  Did libraries die out from under me while I was working on
>computers?  Did all the librarians drop off the face of the earth
>in some huge maelstrom that went unreported because no one
>cared?  
>
>A literary database of the sort you talk about is what librarians
>are supposed to do.  The central storage arena for theses -- who
>developed that?  Not profit minded entrepreneaurs.  Librarians. 
>Who has cooperatively worked on shared cataloging of major
>microform sets?  No bottom profit line here.  Librarians.  A
>friend of mine asked if the library profession is dying.  Maybe
>it is.  These are the types of things librarians used to pull
>together and do, dragging non-access out of the mud.  Did
>technology destroy the ability to do that?  I don't think so.  
>
>So the ALA cooperative efforts, research library efforts, all
>those massive projects that used to get done are still needed. 
>Technology doesn't change that. So its time for one of the
>librarians committees to start working on getting it done. 
>Create the solution to the need.  Don't wait for an entrepreneur
>to do it.  Take care of the patrons.  If you don't, who will?  If
>a method doesn't exist, why not create the method?
>
>-- 
>
>Debbie
>
>+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
>
>Debra Lords			Experience is what you
>dlords at library.utah.edu		have just right after 
>ACLIS Labs			you need it.
>585-9810
>
>
>"Paul H. Gray" wrote:
>> 
>> Welcome to the real world  -- where every major advance or undertaking in
>> recent memory has happened because someone saw a chance to make a profit.
>> The kind of undertaking you are talking about will happen only/if/when some
>> creative soul finds a way to make money from doing it.
>> SO -
>> This is a great idea -- some of of you creative/greedy souls get busy :-)
>> 
>> > On Sat, 25 Mar 2000, Hanan Cohen wrote:
>> >
>> > [...]
>> > > The web needs an Internet Literary Database, similar to the Internet
>> > > Movie Database, so we can link to books without looking like we're
>> > > trying to sell you something.
>> >
>> > The irony bere being that IMDB is run by Amazon.com.
>> >
>> > I do believe someone pointed out a site/service the other day that allowed
>> > you to link to it with an ISBN as an argument, and that site would then
>> > redirect you (based upon previously set preferences ala cookie) to
>> > any one of a number of reference sites and/or booksellers.
>> >
>> http://www.linkbaton.com/ 
>> 
>> Currently, the only options for LinkBaton linking to books appear to be
>> commercial, mainly online booksellers.
>> 
>> There are many possibilities if you toss Library of Congress, Z39.50,
>> local web-based catalogs, and a few others into the mix.
>> 
>> I do believe linkbaton is open source, or soon to be. Unable to find any
>> reference to it on the site.
>> 
>> -jeff
>> 
>> --
>> Jeff Godin
>> Network Specialist
>> Traverse Area District Library / Traverse Community Network
>> jeff at tcnet.org - 231/932-8546 voice


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
matthew.wilcox at yale.edu                203-785-5680

Karen Hartman
Director
James Monroe Center Library
Mary Washington College
121 University Blvd.
Fredericksburg, VA  22406
Tel  540.286.8057  Fax 540.296.8040