Comments on: Displaying Circulation History in the Catalog http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2011/05/19/displaying-circulation-history-in-the-catalog/ or, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk Thu, 02 Jul 2015 22:28:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2 By: Brian Herzog http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2011/05/19/displaying-circulation-history-in-the-catalog/#comment-2791 Tue, 14 Jun 2011 22:59:34 +0000 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/?p=1962#comment-2791 @Mary Ellen: that is great – kind of shocking, but I like seeing that library materials don’t have anonymous lives.

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By: Mary Ellen http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2011/05/19/displaying-circulation-history-in-the-catalog/#comment-2790 Tue, 14 Jun 2011 22:17:01 +0000 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/?p=1962#comment-2790 Only slightly related to your question: I recently checked a book out of my local library that had a post-it note in the front with a note from a patron saying that she would like to purchase the book if the library were going to discard it. She included her complete name. I left the note in the book when I returned it.

Those little items do make the books more interesting.

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By: Gamer Librarian http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2011/05/19/displaying-circulation-history-in-the-catalog/#comment-2704 Fri, 20 May 2011 20:44:31 +0000 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/?p=1962#comment-2704 My childhood library only recently barcoded their collection. When they were done, they had lots of cards from the books.

The librarian had a great idea – she sold them at a town craft sale. People happily paid money for a card with a loved one’s name on it, often in their own handwriting. Others were cut down and made into bookmarks.

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By: Brian Herzog http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2011/05/19/displaying-circulation-history-in-the-catalog/#comment-2703 Fri, 20 May 2011 14:30:23 +0000 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/?p=1962#comment-2703 @Elizabeth: the best thing about open source is that many hands make light work. I’m looking forward to all sorts of new features being added down the road, as they are developed and made available.

@Oleg: a former Assistant Director here once had the idea to make a “last chance” book display – it would consist entirely of books about to be weeded, with a message on them saying “if no one checks these out, we’re throwing them away.” He wanted to use this picture to emphasize the gloom, but sadly we never put that display together.

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By: Oleg K. http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2011/05/19/displaying-circulation-history-in-the-catalog/#comment-2700 Fri, 20 May 2011 05:49:40 +0000 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/?p=1962#comment-2700 Thus far I’ve only heard about this sort of thing done as public art (see, for example, George Legrady’s piece at Seattle’s Central Library), so it’s fascinating that you’re exploring how it might look in the catalog where people’s reactions are certainly more private. Though mixing this with the social aspects of some of today’s catalogs could lead to some interesting comments from patrons.

Now, how would revealing these stats work from the perspective of a librarian providing reference? I know I don’t typically check circ stats when recommending books neither for education nor pleasure. But all other things being equal, if the circ info was just “out there,” I just might try to give that underdog a little push.

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By: Elizabeth Thomsen http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2011/05/19/displaying-circulation-history-in-the-catalog/#comment-2699 Fri, 20 May 2011 03:01:42 +0000 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/?p=1962#comment-2699 Dan Scott is working on code for socializing the Evergreen catalog using Activity Streams and XFN which could make it easy for users to selectively share information on what they’ve checked out, rated, reviewed, lists, etc. Not quite ready for prime time, but definitely moving forward! You can check out his presentation from the Evergreen Conference a few weeks ago here:
http://bzr.coffeecode.net/opac_talk_2011/socializing.html

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By: Brian Herzog http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2011/05/19/displaying-circulation-history-in-the-catalog/#comment-2698 Fri, 20 May 2011 01:40:24 +0000 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/?p=1962#comment-2698 @Stephanie: we have one older gentleman local author who comes in once a year to ask how many times his book has circulated. Some years it doesn’t go out at all, but the years it does you can tell it makes him feel pretty good.

@Stephen: thanks for the links – I like the rating and “people who borrowed this also borrowed…” features. The latter especially seems useful, and should easily be possible and still preserve patron privacy.

@Jeff: when we talk about it, we’re all shocked at the range in pricing different towns (of very similar size) pay for the same database – we’re talking thousands of dollars difference in some cases.

@Deborah: I like that feature too. We just signed up for Novelist Select, so I’m hoping that does the trick until the catalog can handle it on its own.

@laura: totally. I went to a small Catholic school, and occasionally I’d get a book with one of my older cousins names in it, even though they were ten years older than me.

Incidentally, in the library’s archive are the circ logs from about 1900 – notebooks of peoples’ names and the books they checked out. It’s fascinating, but I don’t know at what point it cross from a privacy issue to an object of historical interest.

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By: laura http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2011/05/19/displaying-circulation-history-in-the-catalog/#comment-2697 Thu, 19 May 2011 21:58:47 +0000 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/?p=1962#comment-2697 This is why I miss the old-fashioned due date slips of the sort that stuck with the book–I loved looking to see when things had been checked out, and how far back, and how frequently. It was sort of like a more mysterious version of seeing who had your textbooks in high school in the years before you.

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By: Deborah http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2011/05/19/displaying-circulation-history-in-the-catalog/#comment-2695 Thu, 19 May 2011 19:00:07 +0000 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/?p=1962#comment-2695 I would love our catalog to have a “you might like this…” feature. People are more used to Amazon nudging them to more items with a picture and title than to clicking on subject headings.

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By: Jeff Scott http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2011/05/19/displaying-circulation-history-in-the-catalog/#comment-2694 Thu, 19 May 2011 15:35:58 +0000 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/?p=1962#comment-2694 I have done this with databases in a consortium. There was shocked silence at the cost per click, but it helped us make better decisions on what we are subscribing to.

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