NSW State Library blogs

Not every aspect of library operations needs to be blogged or tweeted or otherwise made available through Web 2.0 platforms, but when there are projects or departments which have something cool and interesting to say, it's nice to have them all gathered together in one place. That's what I like about the State Library of NSW's blogs page.

The HSC Legal Studies News Watch blog is interesting and regularly updated, but my favourite is the Holtermann collection digitisation project blog, which has a wealth of gorgeous glass plate images documenting the 1870s gold rush era in NSW and Victoria (many of these are also available on the library's Flickr account as part of The Commons).

Virtual shelf-browsing

I've been thinking about the new Library lately, and how having so much of the collection in the storage system will change browsing habits (even though the most-borrowed parts of the collection will still be on the shelves). There is something about the physicality of books that makes browsing shelves - whether in a bookstore or a library - an act of discovery and surprise, of serendipity. It's the same thing that makes second-hand book fairs so addictive: what if you find that one book you never knew you were looking for? When you don't know what, exactly, you're looking for, using the online catalogue becomes an arduous task of filtering results from possible keywords. But what if you don't know the right keywords? What if all you remember is "it was somewhere near the Milton shelves, and it had a cat on the cover"? (This is an actual example - I did find it, eventually, but only by chance!)

That's where I think a "virtual bookshelf" like zoomii could really help. Being able to browse actual book covers side-by-side allows for those serendipitous discoveries and vague recollections, which is why I was excited to see LibraryThing has made improvements to its Shelf Browse application in LibraryThing for Libraries. Its integration in the LibraryThing platform also means user-applied tag clouds and reviews are readily available, supplementing the information you can find in the regular library catalogue.

Of course, the virtual bookshelf can't replace the physical browsing needs of some researchers. But it bridges the divide between OPAC and shelf in a way that is intuitive to use and - better yet - brings the "physical" library shelf to the user, wherever and whenever they are.

Who you gonna call?

More serious examples of libraries on the web and interacting with clients in innovative ways later. For now, here's Improv Everywhere's Ghostbusters mission in the New York Public Library.

The New York Public Library is facing budget cuts of $37 million, and the Improv Everywhere incident was to raise awareness of the crisis, and remind people of the library not only as information repository but also a physical place to interact with people. While also being absolutely hilarious :).

Improv Everywhere is not strictly crowdsourcing; while for some missions they've operated on the same principle as flashmobs, their acts are generally "scripted" improvisation by a small number of agents. My favourite IE missions are the Anton Chekov author talk and book signing, the crowd frozen in Grand Central Station, and the Starbucks time moebius.

Web 2.0 training

So here it is! I haven't settled on what this blog will be "about", but for now I'll be posting some entries on Web 2.0 projects other libraries are involved with, and probably expanding into crowdsourcing in general. Doubtless there'll be some geekery along the way.