Information Takes Over

More evidence of the talis platform is soon to be showing itself… On the 1st May!

I had a sneak preview of Silkworm, Talis’ directory service. Through Silkworm, you can add and edit library locations, collections and sevices, such as the location of your opac, and the format/technology used to query it.

I have talked about this before, but having talked to Ian Davis at the LIS Show today, can say that there are lots of exciting possibilities!

I look forward to adding all Herefordshire’s libraries, and then using the information from the directory within the contact pages of our library website, and anywhere else where we might want to put it!

The possibilities inherent within the directory and it’s architecture mean that different collections will become discoverable, through searching. This is, I believe, a step toward a future where datasources (catalogues, repositories, digital collections) can be searched at description level, allowing a user to identify those databases that are most useful. In some ways perhaps similar to the DIALINDEX file in Thomson’s Dialog.

Another idea that Ian and I talked about, suggested that if the collection description was detailed enough, for example 130 books in the dewey range 635 – 635.9, then that information could be shown on a google map (the directory also includes lat/long!) to give you an idea of which libraries in the UK (or further affield) had a gardening collection of notable size.

A providing datasource could generate it’s own self-updating self-description that Silkworm could then harvest.

Interesting times…

Technorati Tags: opac, self description, resource discovery, Talis, Library2.0, Library 2.0, silkworm, Dialog,

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 27th, 2006 at 20:55 and is filed under Library. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.