Norman Oder reported for Library Journal about the new library software BiblioCommons:
“BilbioCommons, a new social discovery system for libraries that replaces all user-facing OPAC functionality, allowing for faceted searching and easier user commenting and tagging, has gone live in Oakville, ON, a city of 160,000 outside Toronto. It is expected to be used by public libraries serving more than half of Canada’s population—and some libraries in the United States, too. ‘This is revolutionary, as far as I’m concerned,’ Gail Richardson, Oakville PL’s acting director of online services, told LJ. ‘People don’t want a library that acts like just a glorified card catalog online. They want a catalog that’s as good as Google and Amazon.’
Library users, said Richardson, most want ‘easy reader’s advisory,’ a better way to get recommendations and to connect with people online. Beth Jefferson, BiblioCommons’ founder, told LJ that the system makes it easier for users to comment—not ‘review’—and tag items wherever they are in the system—a more seamless approach than a product like LibraryThing for Libraries or WorldCat. LibraryThing (in use at the Danbury PL, CT), she said, has ‘real value, but it puts data into the existing catalog…it doesn’t affect search, fundamentally.’…
BiblioCommons has been working with several ILS vendors, notably SirsiDynix. ‘We have fully integrated with [SirsiDynix’s] Unicorn and Horizon,’ Jefferson said, ‘and just completed integration with [Ex Libris’s] Voyager for Queen’s University’ in Kingston, ON. She said BiblioCommons is currently testing with two California libraries, in Palo Alto and in Santa Clara County, with others in the United States under discussion…”
