I’m back in Avalon now from another trip to DC–I’m starting to feel like it’s my second home! The Innovative Users Group [Innovative is our library system] conference was held in the East for once so I felt I really had to go. I won’t bore you with all kinds of details (like with the last one), because this one really focused on back-of-the-house kind of technology stuff. However, the boss and I agreed that my focus in DC would be any sessions that could help with the improvement of the web catalog. There were a few things that were pretty interesting–one of which was an RSS feed straight from your account that you can subscribe to. This may be something that we implement in the future, depending on contingent issues such as system software upgrades. The RSS feed would allow you to subscribe and see from your RSS reading place of choice (a reader, a website like My Yahoo.com, your email, Firefox toolbar, etc.) whether a request has come in for you, whether you have fines, overdues, etc. It’s pretty cool.
Also new: I’ve set up a tool bar that you can download for Internet Explorer and Firefox that will allow you to search the library catalog from your browser. It also adds an icon to booksellers’ websites that allows you to immediately check the catalog for that item before you buy it. Is it a gimmick? I’m not sure yet but I downloaded it myself and have been playing with it. If you’d like to try it go here and follow these instructions:
