MyLibrary

Why not marry MyLibrary with a blog, specifically WordPress?

Again, MyLibrary is a digital library framework & toolbox; it is not an application. Instead it is a “blueprint” for collecting, organizing, and reporting on data and information. As such MyLibrary expects the librarian/programmer combination to syndicate content from the underlying database to an interface. This interface can be one of your own design, or it can be a pre-existing something.

If you export your MyLibrary data as MARC, then you can use your ILS as the interface layer. If you export your data as HTML, then Web browsers are your interface layer. If you export your data as tab-delimited files, then you can use Excel as your interface layer. If you export your data as plain text and in the form of a narrative, then you can use a text editor to view your data. Heck, this path even leads the way for you to create a printed book.

I briefly played with Scriblio the other day. Scriblio is a set of WordPress plug-ins allowing for the creation of a searchable/browsable interface to bibliographic information using WordPress — an OPAC. The advantage of using WordPress as the foundation for an OPAC are numerous:

• it supports (simple) searching out of the box
• data-entry is almost trivial
• it allows users to comment on items in the “catalog”
• browsing is supported through the use of WordPress “categories”
• WordPress content is accessible and syndicated via RSS

If traditional MARC data can be shoved into WordPress, then why not MyLibrary data? WordPress supports an XML import file format called OPML. After importing a valid OPML file the contents of the file show up as entries in your blog. Scriblio distributes a sample OPML file complete with ISBN numbers, LCCN numbers, etc. It would not be very difficult to create a similar file from MyLibrary content. Once created it could be imported into a WordPress instance through a direct file import or a URL. Given such an implementation, your MyLibrary content would have all the qualities of a WordPress OPAC outlined above.

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