Friday, June 27, 2008

Introduction

My name is Amy Gannaway and I'm the Cataloging and PAC Support Specialist for the South Central Library System, and I provide support to our member libraries for the cataloging and PAC modules for our ILS. As Heidi already mentioned, we are currently evaluating a new ILS and OPAC, so I have been following next generation OPAC and ILS developments for the past year or so. I am looking forward to getting a new OPAC for our catalog because our current OPAC is showing its age.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Use that Feed

Folks,

Use that feed. Put it into your favorite news reader like Google Reader or Bloglines and you'll always be up to date on the latest postings on the WiLSWorldCamp blog. Here's the feed URL:

feed://wilsworldcamp.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Use it, don't abuse it. Be there or be square.

Later,

Mark

So what are you doing after ALA ....

So what are you doing after ALA?  Let's go to Camp.  The 2008 WiLSWorldCamp on Next Generation OPAC and ILS: Expectations and Discussions.

You can join Roy Tennant, John Blyberg, Karen Schneider, Jennifer Ward, Sue Dentinger, Jason Etheridge, and Steve Elfstrand  and all go to Camp together.  Many of our campers will be presenting and attending some of the great programming about Next Generation OPAC and ILS at this years ALA Annual conference.  Including sessions such as:
Building and Supporting Koha, an open-source ILS
There's No Catalog Like No Catalog:  The Ultimate Debate on the Future of the Online Catalog
Creating the Future of the Catalog and Cataloging
and many more.

WiLSWorld Camp is July 22, 2008, 1:00-4:30 p.m., at the Madison Pyle Center.
Registration is $40 and you can Sign Up Here

To help us prepare for Camp we've started a Camp Blog. Open for reading to anyone, Campers get to post, comment and help direct the conversations and content activities of the Camp. Check out the WiLSWorld Camp Blog

If you're unfamiliar with the camp process check out this Wikipedia article on the first Camp and then for an example Camp go look at the Library Camp Kansas wiki

Sign up now and come prepared to share your stories and ideas around the Camp Fire at the Pyle Center.


Thursday, June 19, 2008

Introduction

My name is Heidi Oliversen and I am the Circulation Support Specialist for South Central Library System. We are currently investigating ILS vendors and their products, including a new OPAC. I'm interested in staff and patron access services.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Introduction

My name is Alison Ross. I'm the cataloging librarian for the Eastern Shores Library System and manage both the cataloging and interlibrary loan departments. Our library system is currently in the process of moving to a new ILS, so what's available and what may be coming in the realm of the Next Generation OPAC and ILS have been very much on our minds. As we have never been completely happy with the current Horizon OPAC available for our patrons, and as we begin planning for the setup of the ILS and OPAC of our next system, I am very interested in learning more about what's available now and what people are doing with it as well as what may be coming down the line and how it may impact our service.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Introduction and Final Report on Resource Discovery, U. Wisconsin Madison

Hello, I'm Sue Dentinger, Network Services Librarian for the Library Technology Group and University of Wisconsin Digital Collections. With Kelli Keclik, I recently co-chaired a "Resource Discovery Exploratory Task Force". We were charged with developing a vision for information resource discovery in the Libraries that supports teaching, learning and research at UW-Madison. Our goal was to better understand our patron’s and their information seeking behaviors and come up with ideas on how we can better satisfy their information and resource discovery needs.

As part of this, we undertook an online survey of our library patrons, held focus groups and listening sessions (where we got an earful!), looked at several resource discovery projects or products which might be an improvement over what we have now, used CrazyEgg software to get a start on better understanding how our patrons currently use some of our web pages, and finally we produced a report detailing our recommendations. The report and recommendations are available via: http://uwlibdiscovery.blogspot.com/2008/06/executive-summary-of-our-final-report.html

The committee has just ended, and now library management will be deciding how to deal with these recommendations. But I really appreciated the opportunity listen to our clientele and think and read a bit more about the many problems our patrons have using our licensed resources to find what they need and exploring better solutions. So I'm looking forward to this chance to interact with all of you on this topic.

Introduction

My name is Jim Novy and I am the System Services Technician for the Lakeshores Library System. Ever since our automation consortium discovered that the EPS/Rooms catalog our ILS vendor, SirsiDynix, pushed us to go to will not work for us I've been investigating alternatives. I've been involved in developing a driver for the VuFind open source catalog, www.vufind.org, that will let it query our SirsiDynix Symphony database, as well as looking into several initiatives to aggregate patron circulation data to provide recommendations and better relevance ranking.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

introduction

My name is Kirsten Houtman and I'm a Member Services Librarian at WiLS. I'm interested in next generation OPACs and ILS. Since I do quite a bit of OCLC service support here at WiLS, I am particularly interested in how the directions OCLC is taking WC.org and WC Local fit in with the future ahead of us. Mark mentioned the cat-dog discussion, so I thought that I'd comment that though I work with many "cats"in my professional life, I am a dedicated dog person at home. Cats are cute and fluffy and I understand their appeal, tho (they do make me sneeze however).

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Another Introduction

My name is Heather Weltin and I am currently Head of Access Services and Interlibrary Loan at Memorial Library at the Univ. of WI-Madison. I am interested in the next generation of ILS and OPACs because my day-to-day responsibilities revolve around patron’s access to our collections. The future of both will change the future of Access Services and ILL.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Introduction

I am Tatiana B. Miller, Collection Management and Resource Sharing Librarian from Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries. I manage two departments formerly called Technical Services and Interlibrary Loans. I am interested in the Next Generation OPAC and ILS. Our library is moving to our new WebOPAC now. I am interested in learning new ideas and see what other libraries do with their OPACs.