Face it. If libraries are to be Amazoned away–and let’s hope it doesn’t happen!–one reason could be the ability of Jeff Bezos and friend to customize their e-store so you’ll buy more. I get regular, Rothman-specific updates from Amazon. Heck, the library in Alexandria, VA, won’t even accept my debit card to let me pay the fines that paper books so often bring me (who says I don’t “buy”?). But what if libraries could do similar and perhaps even more intensive customization? A library patron could search on a book or topic and then get regular updates on her RSS feed list or perhaps via an RSS-email gateway. Plus, the results could be part of a portal serving patrons’ other information needs. MyLocalLibrary or MyUniversityLibrary?
Over at the Shifted Librarian, Jenny Levine writes of some big-time progress that Casey Bisson at Plymouth State University‘s library has made in terms of facilitating the RSSifation of catalogs from Innovative. I’m a fan of Casey’s blog, by the way–enough to have put it on the TeleRead blogroll list even though he has no equivalent. Here’s more on the Plymouth University library.
Related: XML isn’t enough, from Casey Bisson.
