[Web4lib] RSS

[Levine, Jenny]

> Unfortunately I only know of one major OPAC vendor that's
> integrated these features thus far, and that's Innovative 
> Interfaces (the Ann Arbor District Library is an example, 
> I think). 

	Actually, the credit for that implementation goes entirely to the staff at AADL. They rolled their own code and integrated it into their new Drupal site. Hennepin County PL and Seattle PL also rolled their own, as have many academic libraries.
	Innovative has announced forthcoming RSS support that includes patron data and the last I'd heard, Talis is on the verge of taking their implementation live. I believe the only major OPAC vendor that offers this capability right now is Sirsi, but you have to upgrade to their latest EPS product. I haven't seen any actual implementations out in the wild, although I hope someone will correct me if there is one. I know the open source Koha software provides native RSS feeds from the catalog, although I'm not sure if it also does this for patron data. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if it does.
	I'll second the ELF recommendation with some reservations about the privacy issues (which is why it's all the more important for vendors to provide this information natively out of the catalog). <sigh> For the overwhelming majority of us, unless you have your own programmer(s) on staff, you're stuck manually updating your web pages (or providing an RSS feed so others can display your content) and pointing your users to ELF.</sigh>

Jenny
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jenny Levine
Internet Development Specialist
Metropolitan Library System
http://www.mls.lib.il.us/
125 Tower Dr., Burr Ridge, IL  60527
AIM: cybrarygal
levinej at mls.lib.il.us
(630) 734 5141