Lots of Happenings in LibraryLand
Superpatron Ed Vielmetti is speculating that Ann Arbor District Library might be getting ready to connect Twitter and the Library. Not that I’m putting any pressure on AADL, but if anyone was going to do it, I’d expect it to be them.
“Once upon a time I built a ‘superpatronbot’ that searched the AADL catalog via a Jabber bot — quite reasonably you could build one of these upon Twitter’s direct message listings. Useful? Perhaps, especially if I could link a Twitter account to my library card and then be able to twitter
d aadl reserve anatomy of a murder dvd
and have it do a hold on it for me (or return some disambiguator if there were multiple choices).”
You can find the new, announcements Twitter feed for AADL at http://twitter.com/aadl.
If you want to ask AADL staff what they’re up to these days, head to the Library Camp taking place there on March 20. It’s free to attend, and the discussions are sure to fire up your brain.
I won’t be able to attend because I will be kicking off the day at the SOLINET/OCLC CAPCON event Changing the Way Libraries Do Business: Meeting the Challenges of the Web 2.0 World in Arlington, Virginia. I’ll be giving an overview of 2.0, but I’m really looking forward to hearing the other speakers for the day — Kate Sheehan, Jamie Coniglio, Jennifer Howell, and Karen Calhoun. You can still register, and you attend, please be sure to say hi.
If you can’t make either of these great events, you can try for Library Camp Kansas the day before, on March 19, another unconference that promises some great discussions.
Thanks Jenny!
I’ve been working with Ryan to help figure out what is possible with a twitter to your library link, what’s easy (or hard) to build, and what is within the grasp of people to understand and use.
The big impetus for the AADL implementation has been their new events engine, which is connected up to the twitter so that you hear about what’s happening at the library as it happens! Good for that sort of ambient awareness of things nearby that might be of interest, that you get told about just in time to do them.
Comment by Edward Vielmetti — February 19, 2008 @ 8:44 am
Other libraries have been using Twitter for some time now. The Lunar and Planetary Institute library has been on since April 2007. Almost a year now. And we were not the 1st.
Comment by David Bigwood — February 19, 2008 @ 9:47 am
I’m aware of quite a few libraries on twitter. I’ve been looking for examples where it’s hooked in similar to a bot such as hold notice alerts, hold requests, etc. I haven’t found as many that seem to be using the API besides something like rss2twitter. If you know of any please send them my way. Catalog integration (out to twitter) examples would be great.
Comment by Eby — February 19, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
Thanks, David. I’ve been following several libraries on Twitter, and I even use a screenshot of LPI’s Twitter account in my presentations. What’s unique here is that AADL is trying to hook the service into its catalog automatically in a two-way exchange of information. For example, I know Casa Grande is posting new titles to its Twitter feed, but patrons can’t query anything back. I’m hoping AADL can take that next step and then share the code.
Comment by jenny — February 19, 2008 @ 10:23 pm
I just wanted to tell you what an interesting and provocative blog you have here. For those of us in library school, it is filled with useful and thoughtful comments about the future we will be facing.
Comment by Caren Stayer — March 3, 2008 @ 9:37 am