Friday, October 21, 2005

ProQuest leading the RSS front for Academic Libraries?

GET YOUR CONTENT AND SERVICES OUT THERE! It looks like everybody is shouting this! ( Gordon Ramsey, oh, no sorry Lorcan Dempsey OCLC PICA at LIBER 2005. Or is it just the case of what you want to hear, you will hear ... According to the Shifted Librarian (Jenny Levine) ProQuest is showing "visionary leadership" in the field of RSS for libraries. They are planning to launch dynamic keyword RSS-feeds. Jenny gave a few presentations about the subject. You can view the slides here (the large one!) or here (PDFs). ProQuest mentiones specific purpose in a academic setting, but it can easily be translated to other types of libraries. Please read the blog-item of Jenny yourself and tell me you do not get excited! Look at the presentations -they look great- and you must agree with me that "The Shifted Librarian"'s views are worth to be discussed in any library organisation, including a academical setting. Most of the time developments in Europe follow the US and the UK but always a few years later! The Internet and modern communications make the gap smaller and smaller. She predicts the OPAC vendors will jump in -some time or another- and that database vendors should do so as well to make good things happen on library websites but also for their users. But RSS is just one of the services. Jenny gives a great overview of developments in mobile technology and their possible use.

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