PTFS Europe Limited

Archive for the ‘Library Data’ Category

The British Library is to make its extensive collections of bibliographic records available for free to researchers and other libraries. The UK national library has around 14 million catalogue records comprising a wealth of bibliographic data. The initiative announced today will help expose this vast dataset to users worldwide, allowing researchers and other libraries to access and retrieve bibliographic records for publications dating back centuries and relating to every conceivable subject area. The new free service will operate in parallel to the British Library’s priced bulk MARC data supply activity which is used extensively by large commercial customers.

For different reasons I have been looking at specifications for RFID systems from three different library services this week. They are from academic as well as public libraries, and from several years ago as well as the present day, and they all have one thing in common. Their authors are still unclear about the precise nature of ISO 28560. So here’s an attempt to clear that confusion.

Link to full article

Marshall Breeding’s annual survey on ILS satisfaction has been published. Full report is here.

I just downloaded the (free) LibraryThing Local Books App. I was quite impressed with it. I wondered whether it might be US-centric but it seemed to find my local bookstores as well as my local public library. I also discovered a “Spot the Dog” featured event coming up near me soon!

Details of the App. are here

Goodness, LibraryThing have been busy! They’ve also added a Local Book Search. It’s a location-based search for books. So, if you want Alice in Wonderland in London, try this

http://bit.ly/3tgig5

Full article is here

http://www.librarything.com/blog/2009/11/local-book-search-new-way-forward-for.php

LibraryThing have introduced a “Get this Book” feature. It integrates with a host of services. It is partly driven by the change in Amazon’s T&C’s governing the use of their data – they don’t want any competitors on pages where their data resides. So, we have a secondary page with links to services like Open Library, Project Gutenberg, price comparison engines, swap sites etc. Looks very nice.

http://www.librarything.com/blog/2009/11/new-feature-get-this-book.php

LibraryThing has introduced a “find a book locally” facility to enhance there already rich system. They are now encouraging us all to notify them of our local “Used” bookstores so that they can identify and connect to them. Responses have already been good but if you know of a used bookstore near to you, let them know!

http://www.librarything.com/blog/2009/11/help-put-used-bookstores-on.php

This is a bit differnet!

Dave Pattern at the University of Huddersfield has been doing some fantastic work with their library data but this gives a completely different view of it! University of Southampton student, Alex Parker won the JISC competition with a star studed application to view the data!

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/Home/news/stories/2009/10/bookgalaxy.aspx